


His Tribute

by mathildia



Series: Tales from Netheredge [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Ass to Mouth, Bondage, Caning, Chastity Device, Collars, Colonialism, Extremely Dubious Consent, Flogging, Forced begging, Kink Awakening, M/M, Magic, Masochism, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Punishment, Reluctant Submission, Restraints, Sex Pollen, Sexual Slavery, Snowballing, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:26:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22054774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mathildia/pseuds/mathildia
Summary: Twenty years ago, the great warrior Varak saved The Genzies from something unspeakable, something, even today, only referred to as The Horror. In return, Varak was offered anything he wanted from the grateful people of The Genzies. He asked for a castle on a remote island and that every year he be given the chance to select any 18 year old man on the islands to be one of his personal slaves.No one expects Varak to pick out Blue as the only slave he wants to take back to his castle on Salvation this year. Blue is the son of the leader of the Genzies ruling council and he’s never been trained in how to please a man with his body.But everyone on The Genzies owe Varak their lives, how can they refuse him if Blue is what he wants?COMPLETEBlue purses his lips. “I’m not really going to do this you know,” he says,“Do what, boy?”“Be your bed slave.”“Oh, I’m sorry to inform you that you are.”
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Tales from Netheredge [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566223
Comments: 72
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

PROLOGUE

The island called Salvation is one of the smallest inhabited islands in The Genzies, a range of islands off the North West coast of the Calisto Empire. The largest of The Genzies is Klim, big enough for several towns, including the towers of Izem, with its temples its busy docks and the home of The Genzies ruling council. But most of the thirty islands of The Genzies are much smaller than Klim. Many, like Salvation, only hold a single dwelling. 

The island of Salvation is named for it’s master, Varak, the Great Hero, Saviour of the Genzies, who has lived on the island with his slaves for nearly twenty years. And this morning, Varak wakes, as he does most mornings, to the shrieks of the gulls and the knowledge that he is hungover again.

Groaning, Varak struggles into a sitting position, which involves pushing a tousled blond head off his wide weathered chest. He spends a few moments stretching his arms, shoulders and neck, mumbling complaints to himself that he is stiffer every morning, then looks down the taut body in his bed. 

It takes Varak less than a moment to realise that the slave in his bed is strikingly attractive. Just his type. Honeyed skin, long lashes resting on soft cheeks, a handsome face. Perfect. Varak blinks. _Is this a new one?_ He thinks for a moment. Yes, it was Tribute Day yesterday, he has new ones. He brought back three new ones. A pair of twins and that small one. He taken the twins to bed last night. 

_Twins?_

Where was the other one? 

Varak glances around. The other twin is still tied to one of the posts at the end of the bed, with his hands lashed behind his back. Somehow he’s managed to fall asleep like that. He looks so like his brother Varak finds himself checking back to see that they are really two different people.

There are. Two. Blond and beautiful. Two perfect identical new bed slaves. 

Now he remembers it, it comes back all at once. Last night, he tied that one up like that and had his brother suck his dick. It had been a nice show because, of course, at that point he’d been too drunk to do anything to either of them himself, but he’d been able to watch. And it was a nice watch. His cock grew heavier at the memory. One slave tied up begging to be allowed to come, the other taking it deep like he’d been trained, arse in the air for Varak’s whip, when he’d been able to aim it. 

Because he told them, hadn’t he that it was a contest. The slave sucking had to get his brother to come, the tied slave had to resist. He said, didn’t he, that the loser would get a flogging in the morning. 

Varak starts to get hot and hard just remembering the expression on the bound twin’s face as he tried so desperately not to come while his brother's throat closed around his cock. He'd lost, hadn't he? The one who was tied. Poor thing. Inevitable really.

And after Varak had hauled the winning slave into a drunken embrace, by way of celebration, he’d passed out. 

That was sloppy, even for him.

Varak knows he ought to wake them up, he really ought to untie the one who was still tied up, but his head hurts and he’s hungry, so he gets out of the bed and pulls on a shirt and wanders down to the kitchen. He’ll eat first, then he’ll see about them

*

Drum is in the kitchen. Salvation can be bitter, but the castle is well constructed and it’s very warm in here from the fire and Drum is stripped to the waist, stirring a large pot of something, porridge probably. There are a lot of mouths to feed on Salvation. He looks up when Varak walks in. “Good morning, master,” he says. 

Varak sits down at the table. “Need to eat, Drum,” he says, half a growl.

Drum is used to this. He’s quick to bring Varak everything he needs. A bowl of a fresh porridge. A cup of water with white willow and a cup of beer. A tray of bread and meat and cheese. Varak eats, and as he eats he says, “You saw those twins I came back with last night?”

Drum nods. Drum keeps track of everything.

“How much you reckon those twins would have gone for if their family had sold them to the Harem of Caen instead of giving them to me in the Tribute?”

Drum sits down opposite with his own cup of plain water. “A lot. A pair of twins, who look like they do. A lot.”

“They’re pleasure trained,” Varak says, finishing his porridge, pushing the bowl away and starting on the bread.

Drum nods. “Such a lot.”

“Exactly. So why give them to me? Why not sell them to Caen?”

“Because the law of The Genzies is that all 18 year old men should be offered first to you for tribute?” Drum says, not sounding sure about it.

“You know what they said when they showed them? That I could count them as one item.”

“Oh,” says Drum. “Is there a limit?”

“I’m not meant to take more than a dozen,” says Varak. “And, also. if you knew those two were on offer in the Square of Izem, how sure would you be that I’d have chosen them?”

“Me?” Drum looks surprised.

“Who knows me better than you?”

“In that case, very sure, master,” says Drum. “They look like they’re designed for you.”

“They’re a trap,” says Varak decisively. “I need to stop making the selection drunk.”

“A trap? Why would The Genzies send you a trap? They love you.”

“You know how the situation is now Calisto control The Genzies. They want on to Salvation, and there’s only one way on.”

Drum pulls a face. “I suppose. What about the other one you brought. Is he suspicious?”

“The little one. Don’t think so, but he’s not 18. He looks 14.”

“Then why did you take him? Did you _want_ a 14 year old bed slave?” Drum says this warily. As if he’s really not sure. As if nothing Varak did or wanted would really shock him.

“No. I took him because,” Varak takes a bite from the chicken leg on his tray. “Why would a family claim their son was 18 and send him into the Tribute? Either because they can’t afford to feed him or they need the dowry. Or both. So, I thought, I’ll help them out, stick him in the boat. That way his family get the money and we can find something nice for him to do. He says his name’s Twinkle. Give him an easy job,” Varak pauses for another bite. “Anyone who touches him get’s a flogging, make sure they all know.”

Drum nods and then says, rather wistfully, “You know, master, I remember when you used to flog one of us every day, whether we’d done something wrong or not.”

“I was young then, Drum,” clips Varak, pushing the tray away to show he’s done eating.

Drum nods and stands up, starting to clear away the trays and bowls from the table. He’d been one of the dozen 18 year olds that had been Varak’s first tribute nearly 20 years ago. Varak knows Drum still misses the early days. Back then Varak had been 33 years old, strong as an Ox and still half-crazy from defeating The Horror. Sometimes, Varak feels sorry enough for Drum that he’ll take him to bed, even fuck him, even cane him, if he really deserves it, but mostly, these days, Drum is just the closest thing Varak has to a friend.

“I’ve told you,” says Varak, “if you really miss it, I’ll get you a bed slave of your own.”

“I don’t want some 18 year old caning me in my bed, master.” Varak makes an amused sounds as Drum picks up Varak’s beer cup. “What do you want me to do about the twins. Ship them back to Klim?”

Varak takes the cup back from Drum’s hand, drains the last dregs of beer and returns it, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth. “Not quite yet,” he says, standing up. They’re already in my bed after all.”

*

Back in his bedchamber, Varak finds the two slaves curled around each other, one has his head on the other’s shoulder, one strokes the other’s hairless chest. It’s a beautiful sight. The pair of them are so perfect. _Yes, too perfect._

When they see him they startle, hurrying to kneel up next to each other on the bed, naked, heads bowed, legs spread. In unison they say, “How may we serve you, Varak, Saviour of the Genzies?”

“I apologise for last night,” Varak says, pulling off his shirt. “I was a little too drunk to enjoy you properly then, but, I assure you, I'm ready for you now.” Varak reaches the bed and grasps a handful of hair on each head. He pulls them both towards him and tries to kiss them both at once. Something that always seems a good idea when he has more than one boy in his bed, but it never really seems to quite work. He quickly gives up on it and settles for lying back and having one of them kiss him on and around his mouth while the other works his way down his battle scared body. 

As soon as one of the boys reaches Varak's left nipple and begins to toy with it in his mouth, Varak realises he wants the other boy there too. He shoves him downwards and is rewarded by an almost instant wave of pleasure, which seemed to wash from his nipples straight to his cock, as the two tongues go to work. They’re very good. Some considerable training has gone into this project. A shame to waste it completely.

Varak is gasping and squirming now as the twins continue to tease his nipples. At random he pushes one of the blonde heads down between his legs. Straight away he feels a mouth wrap around his cock. He pulls the other boy up to his face and kisses him, deeply, getting rewarded by a needy little whimper that almost makes him spend. 

He’s glad he held off, because between Varak's legs something amazing begins to happen. The boy is using his lips, his tongue, his throat, even his teeth on Varak's cock, producing sensations he’s never felt before, in twenty years of tributes, keeping him just on the exquisite side of pain. Varak comes within a few moments of this intense sensation with such an explosion of desire and delight he seems to see stars.

The tiny snicking noise of a dagger unsheathing is like an icy waterfall. 

Varak still works on his fighting skills for a hour every day. And at that slight sound, he snaps into the great hero he once was without a conscious thought. 

In a flurry of movement, he’s disarmed the twin with the dagger and is on top of him, holding the dagger to the slave’s own throat. The other, he’s kicked hard, right off the bed and across the room.

“Is that how they told you to do it?” he says to the struggling slave underneath him, pricking at his neck with the blade. “Wait until right after I’ve come?”

The slave doesn’t speak. He spits up into Varak’s face. 

“In that case, I’m glad you were stupid or vane enough to follow those rules,” Varak continues, snarling. “If you’d done it last night while I was sleeping, you’d have completed your mission, you dumb fucking bitch. Wait!” That last word is directed to the other slave, who has struggled up from the floor. That slave freezes. “Stay where you are,” Varak says to him. “Or I’ll kill your brother and then you.”

“Don’t listen,” yells the slave he’s pinning. “He’ll kill us both anyway. You might as well…” Before he can finish, Varak punches the slave in the side of the head with one big fist, knocking him out cold.

It’s clear to Varak that the twin by the door is the less dominant of the two. Things will be simpler now it’s just the two of them. Calmly he says, “Give the bell by the door a tug and get on your knees, slave. Or I’ll slice your brother’s throat out.”

“He said you’d kill us anyway,” says the slave, wobbly voiced.

“Minute I got my hand on this blade I could’ve cut his throat and thrown it right through your heart. If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead already. But I’ve not killed a bed slave in twenty years. I’m not going to start with trash like you. Pull the cord and you and your brother will get sent back to Klim. Alive. You have my word.”

Slowly, eyes on Varak, the slave steps towards the wall and pulls the bell, then kneels.

“Good boy,” Varak says and he sees the slave relax a fraction. “I don’t suppose, while we’re waiting, you want to tell me who sent you?”

“Even if I wanted to I couldn’t,” says the slave. “Don’t know who they were. Just got told, a lot of gold for the family if we killed you. They took us and trained us and told us we had to kill you in bed, when you lay with us, when you were spilling. I don’t know why they wanted it that way.”

As Varak nods, the door opens and Drum appears with three of Varak’s guards at his back. Varak doesn’t need to explain. Two of them take the twin on the floor and turn his face to the wall, slapping manacles onto him. Drum and the other guard, haul the unconscious twin from the bed.

“Cells?” says Drum as they reach the door.

“Stocks,” says Varak. “I’m going to flog them before we send them back.” He sees Drum’s eyes light. Drum likes watching a flogging almost as much as he likes being under the lash. “Might as well,” he stretches his big naked body out on the bed, “might as well give them some marks, diminish their value a little.”

“I’ll see you in the correction yard then,” says Drum.

“Ah, no rush,” says Varak. “A few hours in the stocks first. Send me up a couple of bed slaves first. Ones who can play cards. But not too well. I want to win.”

*

ONE YEAR LATER

Blue always finds Tribute Day quite thrilling. He likes to watch as his father welcomes Varak the Saviour of The Genzies, in front of an excited crowd, eager to catch a glimpse of the man they all owe their lives to. And he enjoys watching the beautiful men, all lined up along the square. And Varak, himself, while not exactly beautiful, looks like he might have been once. He’s very big and battle-scarred and as old as Blue’s father, but somehow, Blue always finds it hard to look away from him, even with hundreds of boys in hip cloths standing on display.

When the Tributes are selected, some of the chosen looked elated, some others look terrified. Blue isn't surprised. After all, no one really knows what happens to them. It’s widely assumed that Varak takes them to be his sex slaves. Although some people say it isn't so much sex Varak wants as to beat his slaves for pleasure. 

And there are darker rumours. These are not widely believed. Most people, still, always refer to Varak by his given title, Saviour of The Genzies, and bow their heads slightly when they say it. But some, a growing few, especially the Calistans, whisper that to defeat The Horror, Varak travelled to Perpetua and took magic that he, as a simple warrior, wasn't able to control. There are even people who claim Varak's tribute is a result of this pact with evil and that the tyranny of the Varak's tribute is every bit as bad as anything a The Horror ever wreaked on The Genzies.

The thrill of Tribute Day, this year is a little different for Blue, as this is the year when Blue himself is in a hip cloth, standing on a small plinth in the square. His father explained to him carefully, that there was no way around this, that many other high born Genzie nobles have been required to put their sons on display for Tribute. It would be noted if they did not. 

None of the noble’s sons have ever been selected. After twenty years, most of the council claim they know exactly who Varak will choose, know that Varak will turn up drunk, barely look at what is on offer and select three or four blonds from amongst the ones who’s families paid for them to be pleasure trained. 

So Blue is surprised when Varak stops in front of him in his cloak and short breeches and looks him up and down. He’s seen Varak many times before, but never this close to. His chest is bare under the cloak and his muscles are clearly defined under the black hair that covers it. His face is handsome with a his grey and black beard and deep lines around his eyes. Those eyes are grey too, flecked with silver. 

Blue smirks down at Varak and poses a little on his plinth, playing the game of being a potential tribute. He is rather surprised when Varak, in response, reaches out and strokes his calf. The touch, the way Varak touches him, touches him a little like he’s a possession, makes Blue’s breath hitch. Varak seems to notice and raises and eyebrow, so Blue says, “What are you doing, old man. I know you want a blond who’s trained to take dick.”

Varak looks shocked a moment, then smiles. “Is that so? You’re Mizral’s son aren’t you? I recognise you.” Varak nods over to Blue’s father who is hanging back, respectfully, not close enough to over hear them.

“Yeah,” says Blue, feeling his heart beat a little faster. Varak’s hand is still on his leg.

“You really aren’t trained at all, are you?” says Varak, still smiling.

“I guess not. Why would I be?”

“What’s your name?” Varak strokes a little higher up Blue’s leg, past his knee. His hand is very big and rough. He touches the back of Blue’s thigh.

“Blue,” says Blue, it comes out half a gasp.

Varak seems amused. “Tell me, Blue, do you know what happened to last year’s Tribute?”

“I do. You took a pair of blond twins who you then claimed were spies who had tried to kill you and sent them back. You’d flogged them half to death. They were scarred for life, but people were still so angry with them for displeasing you they had to leave The Genzies. I think they’re in Calisto now. You also took a young boy. For _some_ reason.”

“Not for _that_ reason, I assure you,” says Varak. “Doesn’t it scare you, what I did to those twins.”

“You are the Saviour of The Genzies. You can do what you want. And I don’t think what you want will be me.”

“Interesting,” says Varak. And with that, he turns back to Blue’s father and calls, “I’ll take your son, Mizral. I like him. Just him, this year.”


	2. Chapter 2

Blue’s father looks back at Varak and he looks amused. Blue realises this must be a joke. Blue’s father has been on control of the Tribute Day ceremony since before Blue was born. Twenty years. The two men must know each other well now. And for all that time, Varak would have known that one day, his friend's son would have to be offered to him as a potential Tribute. So, of course, he’d joke and say he’d take him.

But Varak’s big hand on Blue’s bare thigh doesn’t feel like a joke.

And then his father says, “Oh, you’re, you’re serious.”

“I’m serious, Mizral. I want him.”

“If this is because of what happened last year…” Blue’s father begins.

“It has nothing to do with that. I find your boy appealing. I select him, and only him, this year.” 

Blue waits for his father to say something else. He looks urgently to the other council members stood around nearby. No one moves for a second. Usually it is Blue’s father who announces the choice is made, but he seems frozen. Another council member, a woman Blue thinks is called Fro, steps forward and bangs the gong. 

Blue watches, unable to believe what is happening. A few feet away are half a dozen beautiful blond boys who Blue knows have all spent five years in pleasure training, but Varak hasn’t even looked at them, Varak is taking him.

There is laughter and cheering when it is announced the choice is made. One of the three men that attend Varak step forward and hand him something. Blue knows what it must be, but still, his brain is telling him that it _can’t_ be. But then Varak leans in and offers Blue a hand down from the plinth. Blue takes it and once he’s on the ground he’s more than a head shorter than Varak. Varak smiles down at him and locks the iron collar he’s holding around Blue’s neck. 

Blue’s father steps forward. “If I may, a farewell to my son,” he says stiffly.

Varak steps back and Blue’s father comes close and talks to him quietly. “Blue, I’m sorry, we are going to have to go along with this.”

“Father…” Blue begins.

But Blue’s father doesn’t let him say more. “It won’t be for long. Now we are governed by Calisto this tribute will soon be made illegal, if not this year then next. He is likely hoping you will provide leverage.” 

“What,” Blue hisses back. “That’s all you can say? This is about Calisto. Calisto have sworn not to interfere in our affairs. You have to stop him taking me.”

“There are things you don’t understand about that, Blue. Please believe me. Varak can’t carry on like this much longer. It’s been twenty years. This is a desperate act and it won’t work. Be brave.” With that Blue’s father kisses him on both cheeks and steps back. And there it is. 

One of Varak’s men takes Blue’s arm. He’s too stunned to resist. He’s led to a cart and put in the back. Two of the guards and Varak get in with him and the other gets up front to drive, he lifts the reins and the cart trundles away. The short route from the square to the docks is lined with people. The crowds cheer and sometimes shout thing about how much they love Varak and how he is their great saviour.

After a while, Blue says to Varak. “So you’re not going to put me in a cage or lock me into a yoke or anything for the journey?”

“Nope,” says Varak. He smiles. “Are you disappointed?”

“I just thought you’d have more theatrics.”

Varak cocks his head to one side. “I have a great number of iron devices on Salvation if you would like to be constrained by such things.”

Blue shifts in his seat. He doesn’t know how to respond.

*

At the docks Blue is helped, firmly, down from the cart and into a small boat. He is seated on a bench opposite Varak. Varak’s men take the oars. 

“I’m cold,” Blue says to Varak as soon as the boat is far enough out to sea that the shouts of the crowds of the docks are a distant roar. 

“I’m not surprised,” says Varak. “Wearing nothing but a tiny hip cloth.” He says this as if Blue has chosen, himself, to dress this way. As if Blue was purposely displaying himself.

“Don’t you have a cloak for me or anything?” says Blue.

“No,” says Varak. 

“You just take your slaves from the square in their hip cloths and load them into a boat on open water and you don’t give them any travelling clothes. Don’t they complain?”

“Most slaves,” says Varak, “know better than to trouble me with such complaints.”

Blue says nothing for a moment. He stares, seething at Varak. Unlike the guards, who wear breeches, shirts, jerkins and cloaks, Varak himself is not wearing much for a journey in an open boat. Just his cloak and short breeches. He has long boots that reach to his knees. It’s not much, but at least he has a cloak. 

After a few moments Varak takes off the cloak and passes it to Blue. “Here. I can’t stand you making that face any longer.”

Blue takes it with a sullen, “Thank you.” He wraps himself in the cloak gratefully. It smells of smoke and sweat. The scent is pleasant somehow.

Blue had thought it was the shape of the cloak, with it’s wide fur trimmed shoulders that had made Varak look so imposing. But now he’s taken it off, it’s clear his body is impressive without the cloak. He’s broad and worn. His shoulders and upper arms are knotted muscle. Thick black hair covers his chest.

They are far out to sea now. Klim is just a line on the horizon. To the east Blue can see Raftan, one of the larger islands and to the south is the coast of Calisto. They are heading north west, towards Salvation.

“How long does it take to get to your island?” Blue says.

“Around an hour,” says Varak. “And you ought to call me master. It would be simpler if you did that without me having to beat you.”

Blue purses his lips. “I’m not really going to do this you know,” he says,

“Do what, boy?”

“Be your bed slave.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to inform you that you are.”

“I don’t think so,” says Blue. “You don’t like boys who look like me. You took me for another reason. I’m not really for your bed.”

“Let’s see about that when we arrive, shall we, boy.” 

They sit in silence until the boat arrives on a small beach on Salvation. The island is small, black sand and grey rocks. There’s some green scrub, sheep are grazing. Gulls are circling and the whole place smells of salt spray. 

Varak offers Blue a hand out of the boat and they splash onto the beach as the men pull the boat up. Another man waits for them on the shore. He’s older than the guards, dressed in brown leather and with a brown beard. As soon as he sees Blue he says, “Who’s this, master? I thought you were to take no Tribute this year. I thought you had a plan.”

“Got a new plan, Drum,” says Varak. “Meet Blue. He’s Mizral’s son.” Varak beams when he says that. Excited with himself.

Drum looks unimpressed. “And he’s wearing your cloak,” he says.

“Ah, yes,” says Varak, pulling his cloak away from Blue’s shoulders. “Cold out on the boat.”

Varak wraps himself in his own cloak and Blue yells out as the cold air hits him. 

Drum rolls his eyes. “Do you want me to take him, master,” he says, tightly.

“Yes, take him and clean him, do whatever it is you do to welcome them, and send him up to me after supper,” says Varak. He pauses a second and touches Blue’s cheek. “I’ll see you later, boy,” he says.

Drum takes Blue by the arm, quite roughly and leads him off towards a pathway, winding uphill from the beach. A castle towers over them and they appear to be heading up towards the hill it is set upon. Drum walks far faster than Blue is used to and soon he is puffing his breaths. 

“What did you mean,” he says, through the puffs. “What did you mean when you said he wasn’t going to bring back a Tribute?”

“What I said,” says Drum. “After what happened last year, he was planning to reject all of you. Make a big show of it. Teach the council a lesson. Probably cause a riot.”

“But he didn’t.”

“No. Apparently he has a new plan, and perhaps we’ll even be lucky enough to be told what it is sooner or later.” Drum sighs. “If you ask me, that’s shit, there’s no plan, master just got to the square and realised taking no new bed slaves meant no new bed slaves in his bed, and decided to think with his dick instead of seeing sense.” He pauses on the path, there’s a small door set into the side of the hill beside them, “ah,” he says, “here we are.” And he opens the door with a key on a long chain at his waist.

The door leads into a torchlit passage way, Drum pushes Blue along ahead of him. They emerge from that into a small stone chamber that must be in the castle’s cellars. There’s a ledge along the wall, Drum indicates that Blue should sit on it and he does. 

“Right then,” says Drum, “this is where all the Tributes come when they arrive. I understand you are the son of the leader of Council of The Genzies. So you're high born and have lived the life of a noble, which means you may find it hard to adjust to what will be required of you here. You are a bed slave, whether you wish it or not. And if you do not, you would not be the first who did not, your feelings about it are not important here. You will attend Varak, your master, in his bed and he will take pleasure from your body, however he wishes.”

“That,” says Blue, “is not going to happen.”

“As I said, you will not be the first who does not wish it, and I have many methods to hand to change your mind.”

“Like what?”

“Like restraints, like cages, whips, canes, stocks. I have many ways of making you miserable at my disposal so please, it would be easier if you obey. Varak has quite specific tastes. I’ve never failed to bend a boy into fulfilling them.”

“I was told he only liked blonds,” says Drum.

Drum seems to ignore this. He says, “Through that door are the bed slave quarters. You’ll be shown them tomorrow. You’ll be assigned a room in there and you’ll be allowed to mix with the others as much as you like. Varak doesn’t really like the idea of his slaves lying with each other, because why would anyone who’d come on his magnificent saviour’s cock want to come any other way? Huh? But he doesn’t come down here and I don’t much care so long as you don’t cause any trouble for me. So any fighting over the small pretty ones and I’ll give you a caning, you understand?”

Blue nods. Is he really expected to go through with this, to live in a slave barracks of some sort, to lie with Varak in his bed? He thinks of his room at his father’s house, his silk sheets and fine clothes. 

“So, through that door there is every boy Varak has ever taken as Tribute? There must be hundreds.”

“There are a little more than fifty, currently.”

“He’s had many more than that. Does he sacrifice them to a dark god?”

Drum laughs, “No. He grows tired of us. I myself sat where you’re sitting with 11 other boys your age, twenty years ago.”

“You were a Tribute?” says Blue, looking at the unimpressive man in front of him, with his average height and build, balding head and brown beard. 

“Age come to us all,” says Drum. “When we grow too old for Varak’s tastes he finds another role for us. Every man you meet on this island began in Varak’s bed. The guards, the land men, all of them.”

“Does that hurt their feelings?” says Blue. “When he says they no longer stiffen his dick.”

“Rarely,” says Drum. “Your new master is a savage man. He likes to hurt his lovers for pleasure and make you beg for even the smallest scrap for yourself. Most of us are happy to move to a new role.” 

“But not you,” Blue says, noting the glint in Drum’s eye.

“Not me,” says Drum. “I always enjoyed his cruelty.”

Blue smirks. “Are you in love with him?”

“I’d never be so stupid,” says Drum. 

*

Blue is taken to the bath house and allowed as long as he wishes to clean himself. The water is hot and there are shelves of oils and tinctures. When he emerges, swathed in linens, Drum and two other men tie his wrists behind him and attach a chain to his collar.

He is stripped of his linens and dressed in a new hip cloth.

Blue is led by the chain on his collar up a flight of stone steps and into a large bed chamber. The room is high up in the tower at the front of the castle. The only window looks out over sky and sea. Blue’s chain is attached to one of the bedposts. 

“I’d kneel beside the bed, if I were you,” Drum says. “But I’m sure Varak will be happy to correct you if he doesn’t like your behaviour.”

And then Drum and the guards are gone. And Blue waits.

He doesn’t kneel. He gets on the bed and works his legs under a large fur. The room is not cold. In fact, most rooms in the castle have been quite warm. This one is pleasant thanks to a large fire roaring in the grate in the corner.

It’s been a long day and he feels like he could, despite everything, despite this strange and desperate situation, fall asleep… 

…The next thing he is aware of is someone stroking his face. He opens his eyes. Varak lies next to him on the bed. Blue startles and Varak laughs, a low deep laugh.

“Were you sleepy, princess?” he says.

Blue scrambles upright, “You’re naked.”

“Of course. This is my bed, princess.”

Blue struggles with the chain from his collar and his bound wrists. “Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll call you what I want,” says Varak, taking Blue gently by the jaw and opening his mouth with a thumb. “So, how shall we begin?”

Varak leans in and kisses Blue, takes him deeply and completely with his tongue. Blue struggles a little in Varak’s arms, but Varak is so much bigger and stronger and with his wrists bound there is nothing he can do to fight. He goes softer after a moment, lets his mouth open wide. Varak’s tongue is everywhere inside him.

Varak responds to this submission with a matching passion. He presses Blue down into the furs on his bed and covers his body. Varak is big and heavy. Blue gasps. It’s hard to breath with Varak’s weight on him and his hands are crushed under his body. Varak is running his hands down Blue’s body, making low sounds of pleasure. He fumbles with him and pulls away the hip cloth. Blue can feel Varak’s hard cock against his thigh. 

Blue cannot tell if it is pleasant or not. Varak smells good. Dark and musky. And Blue can feel his own pleasure building. But he does not wish to be taken like this, as a slave, no matter how good it might feel to have no control. 

Varak moves to kiss Blue on the jaw and then the neck. 

Blue, panting under him, manages, “Why are you doing this? I know you don’t want me. Why did you choose me?”

Varak lifts his head. He smiles. “I liked the way you shivered when I touched you. Like this.” He runs an rough hand up Blue’s thigh, between his legs. 

Blue’s head drops back. He gasps. Helpless. 

Varak gives a soft chuckle. “Even when you were a boy you would stare at me like a starving thing. I had, in truth, forgotten about you, but when I saw you on that plinth I could see you were the same proud, desperate boy. And I wanted you. I wasn’t going to take anyone, it’s true, but I couldn’t miss my chance to bed you. I am the Saviour of The Genzies, I can take whatever I want.” Varak’s hand slides higher, until he’s holding Blue’s cock. He’s fully hard now. He gasps out loud.

Varak jacks him a couple of times. Then takes his hand away. Blue is mortified to hear himself whine. 

“Oh no, princess,” says Varak. “It won’t be as simple as that. This is not a marriage bed. I am your master, you are my bed slave. You attend my pleasure. Your own, is hard earned.”

“My father,” Blue gasps, trying not to jerk his hips and keen for Varak’s touch. “My father said you took me for leverage.”

“Your father is an old fool. Why would I need leverage?”

“Because Calisto control The Genzies now. And your Tribute is immoral under Calisto law.”

Varak laughs again. “I assure you, princess, I am more than capable of holding my own island. I defeated The Horror. Let Calisto come.”

“Do you really think you could fight them?” says Blue as Varak strokes one of his nipples. “You’re just one man and they’re an empire.”

Varak seems a little snippier when he says, “That’s enough pillow talk now, boy,” and he rolls onto his back, reaching out and taking Blue by the hair. “Let’s see how you do with your new duties.”

Roughly Varak shoves Blue down his body until he is level with Varak’s hard leaking dick. Blue takes a breath. The scent of musk fills his world. His belly flips. “No,” he says.

Varak lifts his head. He raises Blue's head a little by the hair and with his open hand, slaps his face. It’s not hard, clearly a lot less than Varak, with his body of knotted muscle is capable of, but it’s humiliating and it stings. “Don’t say no to me, boy,” Varak growls. “Suck me. Do it now and show me what skills you have.”

Blue lifts his chin higher. “No. Why? What even are you? What are you doing like this? You were a great hero who defeated The Horror and dozens of monsters before that and now you just collect boys for your bed. What happened to you?”

Varak’s eyes flash with anger. He reaches over to the side of the bed and pulls a cord. “Do you even know what The Horror was?”

“No. But I still think this is beneath you. Getting mad at me because I won’t suck your old man dick. They call you Saviour. Have some dignity.”

Varak slaps him again, much harder. Blue feels his lip split and gasps, shaking. “Dignity is it, boy?" Varak snarls. "You know I have a drug that will make you desperate for me. I’ll give you that drug and you’ll beg for my dick.”

“I probably will,” says Blue, feeling his mouth swell as he speaks. “But that will be the drug, not me.”

Varak huffs out an angry breath, and as he does the door opens. Drum appears, “Yes, master?” he says.

Varak nods at Blue. “Put him in the suck box in the correction yard,” he says. “And give him some Tiger’s Eye. Apparently he knows all about it.”


	3. Chapter 3

Blue is slightly dismayed to find it only takes one of the three guards, who have accompanied Drum, to lift him off the bed and hustle him out of the room. With Drum and the other two following behind, he is marched down the stairs. He’s taken through an entrance way and down another hallway. 

Blue twists in the guards arms. The man holding him isn’t particularly big, but he’s much stronger than Blue. Craning his neck around, he says to the guard, “You don’t have to do what he says you know. You don’t have to do what Varak says.”

The guard ignores him, staring straight ahead. 

Blue tries. “I know you came here like I did. As one of his bed slaves. I know you’ve been in that room, had him try and press you onto his dick. And now he’s punishing me just because I didn’t want him. You should be on my side.”

“Why?” says the guard. Just that deep monosyllable. 

“Because you’re like me,” says Blue.

The guard makes a noise like a chuckle. “I’m nothing like you,” says the guard. “I was pleasure trained in Luknor for five years. I was happy to be chosen. It is an honour to be allowed to serve the Saviour of The Genzies in whatever manner he chooses.”

“Oh,” says Blue. 

“Little hint for you, rebel,” says Drum, behind him. “I always choose the loyal ones for the guards.”

Blue sniffs and says, “You know Calisto burnt the training house at Luknor down.”

“Calistans are dogs,” says the guard. “I cannot bear the thought that The Genzies have made a treaty with them. It disgusts me that we are part of that filthy empire. If they come here, we will kill them all.” As he says this they emerge through a door into a small yard. It’s dark. The guard holding Blue tosses him down onto the cobbled ground and spits on him. 

“Suck box is it, Drum?” he says.

Drum takes a breath, as if assessing. “Put him in holding for now. It’s late. No point leaving him in the suck box overnight. He can go in holding and I’ll put him in the box in the morning.”

“That’s not what master said,” says the guard. “Tiger’s Eye and in the suck box.”

“Yeah, but it’s not always wise to do exactly what master says, especially if he says it when his dick’s hard. Put him in holding tonight and then we can all go to bed.”

Blue is lifted from the ground by two guard. His wrists are untied and he’s shoved in a tiny wooden cell on the edge of the yard. It has slatted walls like a crate, but the slats are too close together for him to be able to see much of what’s outside. The door is closed and bolts are drawn. “Wait,” he yells out. “Wait, you can’t just leave me in here.”

“You’d be a lot less comfortable in the suck box, trust me,” says Drum.

“How am I going to sleep? It’s too small to even lie down.”

“You know, boy, there is a cage across the yard that is so small you can’t do anything but stand upright. I could put you overnight in there. That’s a sweet torture, believe me. Now be quiet and go to sleep. Tomorrow will not be fun for you.”

Drum kicks the door of the cell and then Blue hears his retreating footsteps.

The floor of the cell is cobbled stone like the yard, and it smells like piss, like other occupants of the place might have had to relieve themselves while they were locked in. There’s no roof. The top of the cell is open to the night sky, but the walls far too high to climb. There is a short wooden bench seat and a thin grey blanket. 

Blue wraps himself up in the blanket and thinks of Varak’s warm bedroom and big soft bed covered with furs. If he’d sucked Varak’s dick he’d be in that bed right now, perhaps even snuggled up with his head on Varak’s big chest. 

It isn’t as if Blue had never sucked a dick before, isn’t as if he even hated it.

He curls up on the bench and eventually, sleeps.

*

Blue knows what Tiger’s Eye is. Before The Genzies were part of Calisto you could buy it in taverns. Nowadays you need to find a peddler, but it isn’t hard to get hold of. He’s seen people who’ve taken it at feasts. He’s even fucked a boy who was on _something_ that he thought was probably Tiger’s Eye. 

But he’s never taken it himself. 

When he’s pulled out of the cell, has his wrist manacled behind him and Drum opens his mouth with a gloved hand and tips some green powder onto his tongue, he isn’t sure what to expect. 

He’s kneeling on the cobbles. The heavy hand of a guard on each shoulder. It’s cold but a couple of braziers make in bearable. In daylight he can see the yard properly. There are a set of stocks and a whipping post in the centre on a raised wooden platform. Both look well used. Against the far wall is the cage Drum had mentioned. A tall thin iron cage that would make it impossible to rest. Blue shivers at the idea of it. 

This whole space is dedicated to punishment and cruelty, and that’s what Varak likes, what he wants.

Drum approaches him with a gag. He doesn’t explain what he’s about to do. Blue only really knows what it is that he’s holding when it’s forced into his mouth. A great lump of iron that locks around his face and features a metal ring, tasting of rust, forced into his mouth, holding it open. It’s purpose is not in the least bit obscure,

“There we are,” says Drum, securing the thing at the back of Blue’s head. Now stick him in the box. 

Blue is forced backwards into what is actually a small cage, with space for him to kneel upright and not much else. The door, when it’s closed, features a usefully positioned round hole. Drum walks around the back of the cage. He fastens the manacles at Blue’s wrists to the bars behind and then, coming back around to the front, pulls the chain from Blue’s collar tight so his face is pressed hard to the bars of the cage, his forced open mouth is level with the hold and held right at the height of Drum’s crotch. Drum fastens the chain in place using a hook on the outside of the cage, the drops his breeches. 

“Might as well check it works,” he says.

Blue tries to protest, but all that comes out of his mouth is a howl of anger, and he starts to drool through the mouthpiece and can’t stop. Drum laughs and forces his erection straight into Blue’s forced-wide mouth.

There’s a moment of horror, but then it’s gone.

He’d forgotten about the powder. The Tiger’s Eye. Forgotten until the feeling of the hard delicious thing in his mouth drops through his body, pure pleasure. He’s hard. His hips are jerking. Drum reaches though the top of the cage and takes hold of his head so he can thrust deeper and Blue moans. It’s suddenly all so overwhelming good.

His nipples feel incredible. He’s rubbing them against the bars of the cage. Everything feels good and amazing and then Drum spills down his throat and pulls away and, at the loss, he whines like a dog.

“Seems in order,” says Drum with a sniff. “Just gonna leave you here for anyone who wants to use you, alright?”

Blue makes a needy sound, hoping, desperately, that someone will soon.

He squirms in the cage. His dick is hard against his belly, leaking desire. But he has no way to touch himself, or soothe the aches of need that seem to be rolling through his body. He moans, but now, there’s no one in the yard to hear it. He rubs his naked body on the bars as drool runs out of his open mouth and drips onto his belly.

After some time, some terrible lonely time, two blond boys come out into the yard. They wear collars like Blue’s, hip cloths and small jerkins. As soon as they spot him in the cage they both rush over. 

The taller of the two pokes a finger through the bars and jabs Blue’s chest. “Ooh, who’s this? Are you from the new Tribute? Were you bad already?”

Blue moans and rubs his body against the bar of the cage.

“He’s had Tiger’s Eye,” says the tall slave, “Tiger’s Eye and the suck box after one night. What did you do, bite his dick off?” Both boys laugh.

“Joy was sent up last night,” says the other slave. “So he probably still has a dick.”

“He must just be really, really bad a sucking dick,” says the tall slave. “We should help him. Yes, I’ll go first.”

And then the tall slave is pulling up is hip cloth and Blue is moaning with delight as another dick is forced into his open mouth. He chokes as he’s taken, drooling helplessly, eyes watering, moaning with pleasure. 

“Ooh,” says the tall slave to the other. “Not bad. Warm and wet anyway. Bit artless.” He looks down at Blue. “Need to work on that gagging, sweetheart,” he says. “Don’t want to feel your throat spasm, should be one smooth glide. And use your tongue. Move your tongue more.” Blue caresses the underside of the slave’s dick with his tongue as best he can. In response, the slave sighs heavily, “that’s it,” then, and his voice is a bit breathy, bit broken, as he says, “not trained, but willing,” to his friend, “you want to try it.”

The thrusts get hard and fast out of nowhere. Blue is lost, gliding on pleasure. It’s quick and sudden when the slave comes down his throat and pulls away with a laugh. Blue moans for the loss.

“Very nice,” says the boy. “Give him yours, Samara. Look how sad he is not to have a dick in him.”

When the tall slave says that, Blue realises he is still whining, pressing himself to the bars.

Samara steps forward. “Should I?”

“Go on,” says the tall slave and he slips behind Samara and takes hold of the front of his hip cloth, snuggling into his neck from behind and kissing him there. “If someone’s in the suck box you are meant to. And he even wants it. Look how he’s writhing in there. He’s desperate.”

Samara steps closer, the slave behind him lifting his hip cloth. His dick is longer than the tall slave’s and Blue finds himself drooling for it. He wants that thing right down his throat. He can’t think of much else. When Samara is shoved forward and Blue takes him in his mouth, all three of them moan with pleasure.

He’s taking it as deep as he can when another voice says, “Oh leave him be, he’s new.”

Blue opens his eyes and there’s another bed slave there, dressed in the same collar, cloth and short jerkin. He’s a little heavier set than the first two. He looks younger and he’s very cute.

“Fuck off, Perry,” says the tall slave. 

Blue can’t focus on the conversation. He’s thinking more about the dick in his mouth. Samara has a final quick thrust to spend down Blue’s throat and Blue shivers with delight as Samara pulls away and half his seed leaks out and drips down the front of Blue’s body.

“That’s odd,” says Perry, the new slave.

“What is?” says the taller one. “Put your dick in him.”

“You didn’t notice what’s different about him?” says Perry.

“I noticed he’s in the suck box full of Tiger’s Eye,” says the tall one. “Give him your dick don’t be cruel.”

Blue moans in agreement with this idea.

But Perry doesn’t move.“He has black hair,” says Perry. “Master never takes boys with black hair.”

“Who cares about that, Perry?” says the tall slave. “We’re actually meant to use anyone who’s put in the suck box. It’s the rules.” He turns. “Drum, Drum, Perry’s disobeying master’s orders. Drum, you ought to put him in the stocks.”

Blue hadn’t noticed Drum was in the yard too. But when he looks up, Blue sees he is, feeding one of the braziers. “Piss off Garamid,” says Drum, “or you’ll be the one in the stocks.” 

As Drum finishes speaking the guards who are standing behind him suddenly straighten up. So does Drum. And all the bed slaves.

It takes Blue a second to notice. Varak has walked into the yard. 

“Morning, Drum, boys,” he says in that familiar deep rumble. “I thought I’d come and see how our newest bed slave is doing.” He nods to Drum as he walks towards the suck box. He’s wearing his cloak and his short breeches. The same outfit he’d worn to Tribute. Blue stares at him. He looks so tall and beautiful. As he draws closer, the scent of him makes Blue moan with need. Blue thinks about his dick. How big and hard it had been last night. He wants nothing more than for this beautiful man to fuck him. 

“How are you in there, boy?” says Varak, bending slightly.

Blue looks up at him. he tries to speak but the metal in his mouth stops anything sounding like words coming out. He means to say the only thing he can think of to say, which is, “Fuck me, master,” but all he can manage is to drool and grunt. When his words won’t come out he whines and tries a, “Please.” It’s just a noise.

“Oh dear,” Varak says with an indulgent smile. “It is rather hard to express your desires in that muzzle, isn’t it. But don’t worry. I think I get the general idea.” He leans closer. “Sadly, however, I can’t fuck you now, not while you’re in that box.”

Blue whines again.

Varak seems to enjoy that. He says, “But I would feel dreadful to leave you in that wretched state with nothing.” And he reaches down and pushes a finger through the hole in the gag into Blue’s mouth. Blue moans and sucks it, staring at Varak with his wet eyes. Varak stares back. His grey and silver irises are soft. As he gazes at Blue, his pupils darken. On his big bare chest his nipples pebble up. Blue has forgotten anyone else is in the yard, only remembers when Varak says, “Fuck off you three,” dismissing the slaves who are watching, thrilled. “And you Drum. I want to spend some time with this boy.”

Varak presses his finger in and out of Blue’s mouth as the yard is cleared. Blue can’t help himself from moaning and sucking desperately. Varak’s finger is thick. The feel of it makes him desperate for that cock he saw last night. 

“How do you feel about sucking me now?” Varak says, “Do you want to?”

Blue nods his head feverishly. God, he wants, he wants nothing else.

“I see. But you do remember last night, do you? I told you I could give you a drug that would make you beg for my cock and you said, do you recall, that such begging would only be the drug. Not you. So right now, you don’t really want my dick, do you? It’s just the drug.”

Blue whines, trying to make Varak understand that he was a fool to say that. That he desperately and truly wants his dick. But the whines just sounds hopeless, muffled by the gag and Varak’s finger in his mouth.

With his free hand, Varak opens his breeches and grasps his cock. Blue makes a strange animal sound. “It’s interesting, isn’t it,” Varak says, breath hitching a little as he starts to jack himself. “I’m sure you were very sure, when you told me last night, it would be just the drug that made you want me, you were certain you were right, but now, I’d wager you’d curse that past version of yourself for saying such a thing to me.”

Blue doesn’t know what else to do. He’s moaning and rubbing his body against the bars. He wants Varak so much, but he can’t think of any other way to express it. His own dick is so hard it feels like it’s all he is.

Varak pulls his finger from Blue’s mouth and holds the bars at the top of the cage. He’s jerking himself hard now, his dick is wet and glistening. “Do you want this, boy,” he pants, low and dark. “Can you show me? Perhaps if you make me believe you want it I’ll let you have it.”

So Blue presses his tongue through the gag and makes the loudest, most desperate whining groan he can and as he does it, his dick jerks and he comes, spilling, untouched over his own belly.

Varak almost looks shocked at the sight as he gasps, and shoots his own spend all over Blue’s face.


	4. Chapter 4

An hour or so later, Blue feels very different. The Tiger’s Eye is gone from his system and he’s exhausted and nauseous. Drum appears with a pair of guards and opens the box. The guards haul Blue out and Drum takes off the gag. Blue gasps with relief. His jaw barely feels like part of him. He has seed smeared on his face and down his chest. His wrists stay chained behind him. Drum holds a cup of water to his mouth which he drinks and then a piece of hard bread which he eats. 

As Drum turns away, Blue vomits up the bread over the cobbles. Drum turns back holding a bucket of water which he tosses over Blue. 

It’s cold. Blue shouts out with shock.

“Alright there, boy. Can’t put you back in covered in puke.”

Blue’s eyes go wide. “Back in? You’re putting me back in there?”

“That’s right, boy. Just needed to get the Tiger’s Eye out. But you’ll stay in there until masters says you’re done.”

Blue looks wildly around the yard. Panicking. He can’t go back in, he just can’t. “But he’s not even here. What if he’s forgotten?”

“I promise you he hasn’t, boy. Now. With or without?” Drum holds up the pouch of Tiger’s Eye, offering it with a questioning eyebrow.

Blue shakes his head.

“If you like,” says Drum. “You can do the rest without. Some think the box is easier with. But give me any trouble here, and I’ll shut you up in holding for a week and put it in your drinking water Now _that_ is torment.” And Blue has no choice. Two men are holding him and Drum works the gag back into his mouth, forcing his aching jaw back open. After that, he’s shoved back into the box and chained back in place.

Drum turns to the guards. “One of you two, give him a quick go, for me,” he says. And one of them steps forward, drops his breeches and shoves his dick, fast and artless, down Blue’s throat.

With no Tiger’s Eye he just feels the awfulness of it. He chokes and struggles, but can’t do much or move much. All he can do is let it happen. Let his mouth be taken and viciously fucked until the guard spills into him and pulls out. A long trail of seed comes with his dick, stretching and then breaking, splattering down Blue’s chest. 

Blue whimpers and Drum and the guards walk away. 

He’s there for a while, shuffling in the cage, trying to find a position where his muscles aren’t aching. Eventually another slave boy comes into the yard. A new one. One he hasn’t seen. He’s blond, of course, and dressed like they all are. He looks young. He’s older than Blue but he might be the youngest bed slave he’s seen yet.

He stops by the cage and pauses, hand on a hip, posing. “Hello there, handsome _blackhair_ ,” he says. “I’ve heard all about you. It’s even been said,” the boy bends down, drawing nearer, “that you are master’s new favourite. And I bet you’re probably thinking, well if I’m the favourite why am I in the box, and I’m here to tell you that being the favourite involves doing all the master’s most favourite things. And those things are, well, he is a strange man. If you ask me. Whatever is your least favourite thing, that will be his favourite thing, but then, the strange thing is, after a while it will be your favourite thing too. I never really understood that. Perhaps it’s the dark magic. Anyway, I’m Joy.” He wrinkles his nose. “That’s not my real name. But pleased to meet you anyway.”

With that, Joy lifts his hip cloth and leans in, pushing his dick into Blue’s mouth. Blue just lets him, barely making a protest beyond a soft grunt. At least this boy is pretty.

The boy sighs and takes him somewhat languorously, slowly pumping in and out as if it is a sensuous experience. He doesn’t seem concerned with climax, simply enjoying the feel of Blue’s mouth. 

Behind Joy, one of the boys from earlier appears. The one called Samara. “Do you like him, Joy?” he says.

“He’s alright,” says Joy. “His mouth’s never had an education, that’s for sure.” That casual appraisal smarts a little, and Blue tries to do better things with his tongue. “We can help with that, though, can’t we?”

“I like him,” says Samara. “I’m going to lie with him when he’s in with us. I’m going to fuck him.”

Blue grunts at this but they both ignore him. “You wouldn’t say that if Garamid was here? Where _is_ your boyfriend?” says Joy.

“Holding,” says Samara. “He’s gonna get flogged. I’m here to watch it.”

“Ooh,” says Joy, a bit breathy, speeding up his thrusts. “What did he, what did he do?”

“He stole a chicken.”

“A live chicken?” Joy pants, getting close.

“A cooked one.”

When Samara says that, Joy suddenly jerks and spends down Blue’s throat. Samara laughs. 

Joy recovers himself and says, “Why did he do that?”

Samara shrugs. “Master’s attention.”

There’s some noise and clamour after that. A few more slaves and guards are appearing in the yard. Drum comes out and opens one of the holding cells, pulling out a squirming Garamid.

A couple of guards help him drag Garamid up onto the raised platform. Drum pulls off his jerkin and his wrists are placed in the manacles that hang from the bar of the whipping post, pulling them apart and above his head.

There’s a pause like a held breath and then he appears. Varak, in his cloak and boots, marching across the yard holding a long slender whip, a lithe single tail, in one hand. A wooden flagon in the other. 

He ascends the platform and says, “You again, Garamid?” 

“What can I say, master?” says Garamid. “I miss you.”

“Very well, boy,” says Varak, setting down the flagon, slipping his cloak off, handing it to one of the guards. 

Blue hears Samara take a ragged breath. Garamid’s bare back is golden in the afternoon light, crossed with old scars from other whippings. Blue can’t take his eyes off it.

Varak steps back and it only moments before the whip flies in his hand like a live thing. It paints a bright red line across Garamid’s back that wells up, spills red. The lash flies again. A second line crosses the first and, at this, Garamid cries out. Samara gasps.

The third, a whistle, a blur, a snap. Another tender red line, another yell of anguish.

The lashing is hypnotic. Varak is very skilled. Each line is perfect, the way they cross each other makes a pattern of almost identically sized diamonds all over Garamid’s back. Garamid’s cries are pure pain at first, but they cries soften to grunts and then moans that could almost be pleasure.

After about twenty stripes. Varak steps forward and walks around so he’s in front of Garamid. Blue can’t see Garamid’s face, but can see Varak’s. He can see how he’s gazing in Garamid’s eyes. Almost lovingly. He says, “Never more beautiful, than like this, boy.” And he leans in and kisses Garamid’s forehead. 

After another moment, Varak stamps down from platform. Behind him Drum and a guard start to release Garamid. Meanwhile, Varak picks up his cloak and his flagon and approaches the suck box. 

“How are you doing in there, princess? Wouldn’t you rather be in my bed? I enjoy a boy after administering a flogging like that.”

Blue grunts a noise he hopes is one of disgust. 

Varak appears to find this very amusing. “Not interested? I hear you’ve had a busy day.”

Blue still can’t talk through the gag, but he figures, Varak understood him last time, so he puts everything he can in spitting out. “Fuck you.”

“Oh, you’re getting better at that. Last time you said _fuck_ to me in there I could barely understand it.” He takes a sip from his flagon and then tips the rest of it, cold water, right over Blue’s head. Blue yells with anger, but Varak is walking off. 

He grabs Joy by the hand as he passes him, then yells over to Drum on the platform, “Let him out, Drum. I think that’s enough.”

*

When Blue is finally out of the suck box, he barely feels like his body is his own. Drum wraps him in a blanket and escorts him to the bath house, where he is allowed to stay in the steam and hot water until his limbs seem to work again. At one point a tall blond man comes in, introduces himself as ‘the healer’ and massages Blue’s jaw and cheeks with something that tingles and makes the blood rush to his skin.

Then he finally sees the bed slaves’ quarters, taking it in half-dazed. There’s a large room, rugs on a stone floor, a good big fire, soft chairs blankets and cushion. Boys everywhere, all of them blond.

He has a bedroom. It’s very small. Only big enough for the narrow bed and squat cupboard. But the bed has thick blankets and soft sheets. 

He sinks into it, thrilled by the idea of sleep. “I’ll have some food sent down,” says Drum as he leaves Blue there. “And try not to upset him again.”

*

When Blue wakes there’s some bread and cheese and cured meat on a tray by his bed with a cup of beer and a pot of honey. He eats it all in a great greedy rush, saving the honey until last and licking every scrap from the pot.

He’s barely finished, still picking up crumbs with his fingers when the door opens. It’s Joy, posing in the doorway. “Hello handsome blackhair,” he says.

“Hello,” says Blue.

“Oh,” says Joy, “don’t you have a nice voice. Are you a prince or something?”

“No,” says Blue. And then because he feels like he ought to explain further. “My father is Councillor Mizral.”

Joy looks confused for a moment, then says, “Oh. In Izem?”

“Yes.”

“Izem,” says Joy. “The big city. I only went there once.” He flashes his eyebrows. “On my way here.”

“Where are you from?”

“Golden Top.” 

Blue knew Golden Top, a village on the cliffs in the south corner of Klim. “So, Klim then?”

“Yeah. Yes. I’m here to fetch you, by the way. Varak’s sent for you.”

“Oh? Do I just go to his room? I’m not sure I know the way.”

“No. You won’t be able to just go anywhere by yourself. Not for the first year, at least. In case you try and escape. They’ll be a guard for you on the door. He’ll take you up.”

“Right. Alright,” says Blue, an odd thrill in his belly as he stands. Joy takes a step into the room, then another. Blue feels crowded. Joy seems to be standing very close to him when he says, “I want to lie with you blackhair. You’ll like it. I’m good with my mouth. I can make it feel like your dick is the stone inside a warm plum.”

Blue laughs. “Are we allowed?” Didn’t Drum say Varak didn’t like his boys to lie together.

Joy takes another step. A small half step. There isn’t room for much more. “No,” he says on a whisper of breath. And bites his lip.

Blue just stares at Joy. Joy is probably the most beautiful of the slaves he’s seen so far. Like all of them he has golden skin and hair, big blue eyes and sleek muscles, but his are better somehow, just a little better arranged. “I should go though,” says Blue.

“Yes,” says Joy. But he doesn’t move, so Blue has to press around him to get to the door of his room.

*

He is delivered to Varak unbound. Varak is already lying on his bed. He’s wearing his short breeches, big arms behind his head. When Blue appears, he pats the furs next to him and says, “You did well today, boy. Come here. Lie with me.”

Blue climbs on to the bed and sits. He stretches his legs out, ankles crossed. He puts his hands in his lap. 

Varak looks him up and down. “So I have to ask you, boy, are you ready to obey me?”

Blue takes a breath. He has an answer to this question ready. “Seeing as how your punishments are completely disproportionate, then, I suppose, yes I am. As I don’t want to die more than I don’t want to fuck you.”

Varak laughs, a kind of deep chuckle. “Disproportionate, are they?”

“ _Yes_. I could have been allergic to Tiger’s Eye. I could have choked. I could have dislocated my jaw. I could have frozen to death.”

“Ah,” Varak waves this away as a needless concern. “Drum knows what he’s doing.”

“Does he?” says Blue, tightly. “Shall we carry on then? Don’t worry, you don’t need to tell me. I know what you want.” Blue rolls onto his stomach. He gets up on all fours and then reaches behind himself to flip up his hip cloth, baring himself to Varak. “This is what you want isn’t it? Help yourself.”

“Princess,” say Varak in a soft coo of a voice, “delightful as this brazen display is, it is not what I want.” He grabs Blue by the waist as he speaks, flips him over and cradles him in his big arms, one around his shoulders the other caressing his chest. He leans down over him and gazes into his eyes as he runs the flat pad of a big thumb over one of Blue’s nipples. Blue gasps. It’s good. It feels so good.

Varak leans closer and kisses Blue gently on the mouth. Blue sighs. It’s soft and slow but Varak works his way deeper, deeper, as the kiss goes on. Blue is so soft under him he feels like he could be a part of the fur he is lying on.

After a long kiss, Varak moves to kiss Blue’s neck. He’s making soft sounds of pleasure as he does it, as if Blue tastes delicious, nuzzling in, licking and biting, once or twice sucking hard enough to make marks, leaving Blue yelling and gasping.

He can’t help himself. Being in Varak’s arms is getting to him, under his skin. The room is so warm and the bed is so comfortable. Varak is so handsome and he smells so good. Part of him wants so much to give himself over to Varak. To willingly let Varak takes whatever he wants, whatever he needs. 

But he can’t. He can’t give himself over and enjoy life as a bed slave. Who would he be if he did that?

“This,” Varak breathes, “is what I want. I want that boy from the square in Izem who couldn’t hide his gasp when I stroked his leg. I want that squirming boy in the suck box full of Tiger’s Eye. I want you to beg me to fuck you, like you did in the correction yard.”

Blue opens his eyes. “That wasn’t me. I told you, and you made a point of it, that was the drug.”

“But I know it’s in you. That desire. I want to see it. I want to make you so desperate for me you beg to be fucked, drug or no drug.” Varak kisses Blue’s neck again and pinches one of his sensitised nipples. “Some say Tiger’s Eye just reveals the dark truth of the heart.”

“That’s nonsense,” says Blue, but he’s still gasping as Varak twists his nipple and kisses his neck. “If anything that’s the truth of your dark heart.”

“Perhaps, I do want to hear you beg, boy.”

“Why? Why bother. You know you can just take me. I’m your bed slave, remember. I can’t say no to you. Why do you want me to beg you?”

“I want you to want what I want,” Varak coos into Blue’s ear.

Blue turns and pushes Varak’s hands off his body. He struggles upright and looks down at Varak, looking up at him amused from the bed. “I’m never going to beg you to fuck me,” says Blue. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I assure you there is nothing wrong with me.”

“People says there is. They say that fighting The Horror drove you insane. They say that you used dark magic to do it and that’s why you have the Tribute. So you can make a blood sacrifice.”

“Is that what they say?” Varak still looks amused.

“That’s what they say. And now I’ve met you. I think they could be right.”

“Most stories, I find are partly true. Like what a boy says when he’s full of Tiger’s Eye.”

Blue pouts in response, but he’s only half serious. His body still thrums to be touched.

Varak reaches for him and pulls him down, back into the embrace. “Perhaps you are just complaining because you came up here expecting to get fucked,” he says, pulling Blue close. “And now you find you’ll have to beg for it.”

Varak his holding Blue tight to him. He can smell Varak’s sweat. It makes him feel good, almost lost in how good it is. Blue tips his head back so he can look into Varak’s eyes. “I’m not begging you,” he says, but it’s a tease.

“Do you know what The Horror even was?”

“Everyone knows. It was a monster that came from the sea and attacked the small islands. The ones on the edges. It would come out of the sea and kill everyone and all the animals too. No one knew when it would come, which island would be next. It was a terrible dark time. Until you killed it.”

One of Varak’s hands drifts down Blue’s body, glides over his arse. “Every living thing on those islands would be torn to pieces or burned. You’d wake up and look out to sea and one of the islands would be a smoking ruin. Anyone who’d lived there, dead.”

“Yes. I learned about it. But the bigger islands were safe.”

“They were, but that meant people from the smaller islands were desperate to get onto the bigger ones. Klim and Raftan were overwhelmed. Crops were failing on the smaller islands because there weren’t enough workers to tend the fields. And the islands it took kept getting bigger. You know it took Surcan?”

Blue knew that The Horror had attacked Surcan. Everyone knew. But now he really thought about it. “Surcan’s not that small.”

“Three villages on Surcan.” Varak is still stroking Blue’s arse, thick fingers moving closer to his hole.

“How did you stop it? A monster that could destroy an island the size of Surcan in a night.”

Varak’s finger circles Blue’s hole. Just a suggestion. The idea that he could breach it. “That’s a question for another night, boy,” he says.

“ _Did_ you use dark magic?”

Varak lifts his hand and brings his open palm down on Blue’s arse. Hard. Hard enough to make a loud cracking noise in the room. Hard enough to snatch Blue’s breath. “I said another night,” he coos, but his breath catches. 

Blue grinds against Varak, thrilled to find him hard, then gasps as Varak tips him off his body onto the bed. He’s on his belly, face nestled in the furs and Varak is on top of him, moving down in kisses, licks and nips of teeth.

He gets all the way down Blue’s back, moves over the swell of his arse and licks there too. Nudges close and slips down until his tongue glides over Blue’s hole. Blue gasps. The feeling is like nothing he’s felt before. It’s like he comes alive under Varak’s tongue, which is firm and hot, exquisite as it dips into him.

Blue pushes back with a moan. There’s not much depth to it, how deep could a tongue really go? But he still tries to get more, still keens as Varak chuckles and sweeps his tongue in a circle, laving it around the needy edges of his hole. 

“Please,” Blue whispers into the fur. Quietly. And he presses back again.

Varak laps at him again. He moans. He can’t help it. When Varak lifts his head, he says, “Do you have anything to say to me.”

Blue screws up his need as tight as he can. “No,” he says, defiantly. And though he wants Varak to lick him and fuck him more than he can remember wanting anything. He is not begging for it. He is not begging like he did when he was in that box full of the drug. That was not the real him and he is not going to let Varak insinuate that it was.

“You sure?” Varak draws a finger up the seam of Blue’s arse, pausing, only briefly, to dip into his hot, wet centre. 

“No,” he says again.

“Fine,” says Varak. His body heat is gone suddenly. He is no longer on top of Blue. He’s sitting up. He’s pulled the bell.

“What are you doing?” Blue says.

“Nothing, boy. Just thought it was time you got to your bed.”

“Now?” Blue stares at him, “but we were in the middle of… things.”

“And now, the things are over.” As if to make the point, Varak reaches over and tugs down Blue’s hip cloth, covering him. Blue’s still hard though, his dick like iron against the bed.

The door opens. Drum stands there, “Master?” he says.

“Ah, Drum. Do we still have that device? I don’t want this one to spend until he’s ready to beg for my cock inside him.”

“What?” says Blue. He is ignored.

Drum says, “Of course we have it, master.”

“Good. Fit him with it before he returns to the slave rooms.”


	5. Chapter 5

Blue walks down the stairs with Drum. There are no guards around. He’s not being held, being roughly marched anywhere. Just following Drum, who’s muttering, “Do we still have it…? As if I would mislay _that_ , as if I don’t know how much he likes to…”

Blue follows Drum through a corridor and into a large round room. It looks like some kind of workshop. Drum points to a bench. “Sit there,” he says, “spread you legs.”

Drum turns away from Blue and when he turns back he has a complicated piece of ironwork in both hands. “What is that?” says Blue.

“Better than the thing you had in your mouth,” says Drum, turning the contraption around in his hands. “But not by much. Could you not just _indulge_ him a little? Your life would get easier. This goes on your dick, boy. Are you going to let me put it on or do I need to get some guards in here to hold you down. I assure you the final outcome will be the same.”

“How does it go on my dick?” says Blue.

Drum takes a step closer and crouches between Blue’s legs. “Let me show you,” he says, lifting Blue’s hip cloth.

“Do you have to?” says Blue, spreading his legs wider so Drum can get even closer.

“Course I do. If I let you off this and you go back to your room and jerk off or lie with one of the other boys, he’ll know when he next sees you and doesn’t see the desired effect, that you didn’t wear this.” Drum slips the band of metal around Blue’s hips.

“But so what if he did notice? What would he even do?”

Drum looks up. “That’s not the point, boy.”

“It’s not like he can get rid of you, is it? You run this entire place for him.”

Drum looks a little sad as he says. “You’re too young to understand it. You don’t know what he did. He made a great sacrifice to save us all. It’s my great honour to see that he has whatever he needs.”

Blue doesn’t say anymore and Drum leans down and attaches the second part of the device. A small cage that encloses Blue’s dick. Locked to the band on his hips there’s no way to remove it. “Stand up now,” says Drum and he fits the back part of the cage with a piece that passes between Blue’s legs and locks to the band at the back. It covers Blue’s hole. When Drum adjusts Blue’s hip cloth back into place, the device is covered, but he can feel it, the weight of it, the way it holds him.

Blue moves his hips. “But how am I to clean myself. How do I evacuate?”

“You can’t,” says Drum. “I’ll have someone attend you twice a day.”

And that’s it. As simple and shockingly as that, Blue’s cock is locked away from him and Drum takes him back to the slave quarters. It’s late, but a lot of the boys are still awake, sat by the fire. Joy calls out to him, “Handsome blackhair, didn’t expect you back so soon. Come and sit with me.”

Blue walks over and take the place Joy makes for him, sharing a large, soft chair. Joy winds his arms around him, easy and possessive. Blue tips his head back to look at him. “Don’t get too enamoured,” says Blue. “I’m off limits.”

Joy’s eyes go wide. Without even asking he puts both hands under Blue’s hip cloth. His mouth drops open and he says, “Oh. He put that on you? What did you do?”

Blue shrugs, “I wouldn’t beg him.”

“Wouldn’t beg him for what?” says another boy.

“To fuck me.”

At that the boys all break out into laughter. One says, “Why not?”

Joy slides his arms tighter around Blue’s waist and says, “Why don’t you want him to fuck you? He’s so good. You know, blackhair, nights he doesn’t take me to his bed, I fist my cock and dream about nothing but the way he licks me open.” Joy moans as his tongue glides over Blue’s ear.

Blue squirms in the chair. He feels his dick press at the bars of the cage.

“Why?” says Samara. “Why really?”

Blue says, “I just don’t want to beg him.”

“But why?” says Samara again as if this is very unsatisfactory.

Blue squirms. “I don’t know, the way he asked me to do it, it was like he wanted me to be someone I wasn’t.”

“He’s not trained,” says Joy as the other boys laugh.

“Not all of us are trained,” says another boy, one Blue saw out at the suck box, one with a pretty round face. “But they’d have told you at moon school to obey him in his chamber.”

Blue makes a face. “I never went to the moon school. My father said I didn’t need to, that he’d never take me.”

“His father is the leader of The Council of The Genzies,” says Joy.

“Really?” says the round faced boy. “And he is treating you very harshly. Your first two nights and you get suck box and the belt. Why is he so cruel to you?”

“He is always cruel, Perry,” says Samara.

“Not like this,” says the round faced boy.

“Is that what you like?” says Samara to Blue. “The cruelty. I think he likes when you like it.”

Another boy says, “I think he likes it if you resist. Likes to be able to flog you for it. Or use the cane even harder because you’re making too much fuss.”

“Oh, that cane,” says Garamid. “I love that cane he keeps in his room. I love it more than flogging. I used to beg him for that cane all night. He caned me on my very first time. It wasn’t my first night here, but the first I went up to him. There were five of us. He didn’t take me up first.”

Softly, Perry, the round faced boy, says, “He just held me, my first night. I was scared. I’d never been away from home before. You see, he isn’t really as harsh as he likes The Genzies to think. He took Twinkle because he’s soft.”

Another boy says, “He took Twinkle to punish Twinkle’s parents for putting him in the Tribute when he was only 14. That’s what he told me.”

Blue says, “Twinkle is the name of the young boy he took last year?”

Joy nods. “Yes. He works with the chickens now. You’ll meet him for sure. He’s our little brother. He wants to be an official bed slave when he’s 18. Varak says he can’t be, but I think that will depend how comely he grows.”

“Your father is right,” Perry says, “He doesn’t take boys like you. Look at us. Look at you.”

Blue looks around, but he already knows what Perry means. The boys crowding around the fire are all blond haired, all of them with summer blood. Whereas Blue is all of the cold with his dark hair. He doesn’t look like any of them. “Why does he always take blonds. Until me, I mean?”

“His lost love was blond,” says Garamid.

“His page,” says Samara. “His page went with him to fight The Horror. And died in the battle.”

“And some people,” says Garamid, “say he killed his page himself, that he had to sacrifice his love for the dark magic to defeat the Horror.”

Joy shivers against Blue.

“He didn’t really use dark magic,” says Perry.

“He did,” says Garamid.

A playful sort of argument breaks out between several of the boys over that. Blue looks into the fire. What’s really happening in this place? _What does it all mean?_ Joy is stroking his neck. It feels good. He’s aware that he’s tired and a long way from home. When he looks away from the fire, Perry is watching him. Garamid and Samara are kissing, Garamid’s hands are under Samara’s hip cloth, doing things to him there that are making him gasp and squirm.

Joy puts and hand on Blue’s jaw and turns his head, turns it so they are mouth to mouth and kisses him softly. “I can’t spend,” Blue whispers into his mouth, although the kiss is nice, soft and delicious. 

Joy pulls back. “You could still suck me,” he says.

Samara is sitting in Garamid’s lap now, head back, neck exposed, moaning as Garamid bites him there and jerks him at the same time.

Blue says, “I think I’ve had enough of that for a while.”

“I’ll have to wait for you then,” says Joy. “Next time you’re in his bed, do what he says so he takes that off and I can have you.” And he turns and tugs at the arm of a boy sitting on the other side of him, getting his attention and pulling him down into a kiss.

*

The next days pass for Blue quietly. He eats good food and sleeps in a good bed. The healer comes each morning and evening and takes him to the bath house. He removes the belt, ties Blue’s wrists and carefully washes him. Blue gets hard when this happens, despite the fact that the process also involves Blue having to defecate while the healer watches him.

The bed slaves spend a lot of their days talking about Varak when they are not fucking each other. Blue is often the subject of these discussions too, why Varak chose Blue, why he broke with his usual form. Perry asks Blue a lot of questions about his father and whispers to him that he thinks Blue was chosen as some kind of warning. 

“What do you mean?” says Blue, when they find themselves alone.

“Last year, someone, and it would have to be someone who understands the Tribute, sent two assassins here. Now The Genzies are part of the Calisto Empire, it would look better if the tribute was stopped. It is immoral under Calisto law for men to lie with men.”

“The Genzies don’t follow Calisto law.”

“Not yet. Because they are scared of Varak. But it’s been six years, and if they are brave enough to try something like they tried last year, maybe they are getting less scared.”

“Why would they be scared of him at all?” says Blue. “He saved them.”

“Exactly. So he can _unsave_ them. He could bring The Horror back.”

“Could he?”

Perry shrugs. “Maybe. No one really knows how he stopped it.”

“What does this have to do with me? Am I some kind of ransom?”

“I don’t think so. I think he is being cruel with you, because he plans to call you another traitor and send you back. Mizral’s son. Flogged and abused. It’s a warning and also a reminder than he is still half mad, still touched by darkness and full of sadistic cruelty. Enough to make them think twice about coming here to stop him. Enough to think twice about what he might be capable of.”

Blue swallows. So the punishments will only continue. “What should I do?”

“If I were you,” says Perry. “I’d do everything I could to make it hard for him to punish you. He does like to be just. For his idea of justice, at least. He’s harsh to you but not unfair. Try obeying him.”

Blue nods. The belt is so frustrating and uncomfortable, he’s ready to try anything.

*

Another day, Garamid brings in some kind of root vegetable that he claims is the exact shape of Varak’s dick, and the slaves laugh at it all afternoon and have a competition over who can get it furthest down their throats, which ends with Samara puking. Joy wins. Blue finds out Joy has the most exclusive pleasure training of all of them, and had been sent all the way to Ka for it at the age of five. 

Although he usually manages to distract himself in the daytime, each night when Blue sleeps alone his hands wander to his aching caged dick, and he moans to himself with quiet frustration. He has not seen Varak, not been sent for. As the days pass, the nights pass, he starts to wonder if Varak will ever call him back, or if his plan is to leave him, with no chance to touch his own dick, or even his hole, for the rest of his life. 

And he wakes each morning with his cock hard in the cage, pressing at its bars, and with dreams of Varak’s tongue on him, fading from his memory. He reaches down and touches the belt, and he likes something about the feel of it. Not being able to touch himself makes him whine and keen alone in his own bed, but he likes the thought that he’s wearing this because Varak directed it. And he likes thinking about what Perry advised him to do next time Varak takes him to bed,

Every so often, Joy will catch his wrist and pull him close, press their mouths together and whisper, “I know it’s cruel to kiss you, handsome blackhair, when you can’t even stroke, but I can’t resist you. Please do what he wants next time. I’m desperate to bed you.”

And eventually, after ten days of waiting, he is called back to Varak’s room.

*

It’s late evening. Blue walks up the stairs with a guard and in the room finds Varak, spread naked, beautiful, on his bed with Joy’s head between his legs. One of Varak’s big hands is splayed over Joy’s skull. Joy is similarly naked and his wrists are tied behind him with a piece of red silk.

Varak looks up and smiles at Blue, “Ah, there you are, boy.” He pulls Joy off his dick by the hair, and tosses him back, lightly on to the bed. Varak’s dick is unspent, still hard, glittering with the wet of Joy’s mouth. Blue can’t keep his eyes off it. He knows that’s Varak’s intention. Knows what he wants Blue to think of.

“Good evening,” says Blue. “Do you need me?” He looks at Joy, who has turned his face to look back at Blue and is smirking.

“I need you very much, boy. I would not have taken you if I did not. Strip yourself and come to the bed.”

It doesn’t take a moment for Blue to shed his hip cloth and climb up on the bed beside Varak. He kneels in up front of him on the furs. “I am afraid to say I cannot strip myself fully,” he says.

“Ah yes,” Varak says, heartlessly, as if he’d almost forgotten the latest torment he’d inflicted on Blue. He reaches out a hand and strokes it over the cage containing Blue’s poor neglected cock.

And the effect of that single tease of a touch is to destroy Blue, to send him keening, thrusting the cage into Varak’s hand as if that would do anything, to moan, his belly turning to liquid.

Varak laughs, “So, do you want that off, boy? It has been a while.”

“Ten days,” Blue says, stammers it out somehow, his cock in the cage is _leaking_. From nothing, from the _idea_ of touch.

Varak takes hold of Blue’s chin and slides a finger up, along is bottom lip, into his mouth, “Of course, I have no need to remove it to use you.” He rubs at Blue’s tongue.

Blue thinks of what Perry said, that Varak’s plan is to torment him and treat him cruelly, and that the best way to frustrate that goal, would be by complying with what he wanted. “Master, please,” he manages around the finger in his mouth.

Varak is smiling, “Master, is it now?”

“What ever you want, master,” says Blue. “I’ll do whatever you want. Use me for your pleasure.”

“This belt has worked well on you,” says Varak, stroking an idle palm over it again. 

And Blue moans again, as Varak turns away and leans over to where Joy is lying in the furs, watching them. With one hand, Varak frees Joy’s wrists and says, “Tie Blue for me, boy. Tie him to the post at the end of the bed. I want to watch this new desperation to please me.”

Joy slips off the bed and walks around it. Blue, still being compliant, shuffles to sit with his back to one of the bed posts. With soft indulgent touches, Joy draws his arms together and ties his wrists with the scrap of silk. It feels like a whisper of a touch, but when Joy steps away, he realises the knots are secure enough that he might as well be bound with iron.

The feeling of relief when Varak leans close and uses the key to unfasten the belt is immense. He’s had the belt off twice a day under the eye of the healer, but this feels different, incredibly different when Varak glazes a palm over the leaking head of Blue’s dick, just the slightest touch, but it’s enough that he already feels ruinously close to spending. 

Varak smiles, “Save that for my cock, boy. If you don’t mind. If you don’t want this belt back on for a month.”

To that all Blue can manage is a moan. He doesn’t even know what the moan is for.

Varak settles himself back on the cushions, facing Blue from the head of the bed. “But let’s have you first,” he says to Joy. 

Joy is standing off to the side, beside the bed. He’s standing straight with his hands interlaced behind his head, a display position he took up when Varak had given him no other order. Blue thinks about Joy, trained from the age of 5 to give pleasure bed. 

In response to Varak’s command, Joy drops his arms and takes a step towards the bed, smiling, greedy eyes. When he can reach him, Varak pulls him close, into his lap and tilts his chin upwards for a long kiss. It’s slow. It’s a show. A tease. Torture. Blue can see clearly the way Varak’s tongue slides deep into Joy’s mouth, pulling away and driving in again, Varak making just enough space between their lips that Blue can see it all.

Blue can’t look away from it. The way Varak kisses Joy makes Blue think of the way Varak would fuck.

After a long time in Joy’s mouth, Varak pulls away a little more and licks at Joy’s lips, laves at them like he would Joy’s hole. Licks around the edges, teasing and twisting, making Joy writhe, fluid in his lap.

Blue is panting, watching him. He tugs at the silk on his wrists, but it doesn’t move. All he can do is writhe like Joy is writhing. His dick is vicious hard, pressed to his belly, drooling slick.

Varak takes a handful of Joy’s hair and uses it to pull is head to one side, baring his neck, opening it to him. He presses his mouth there, showing Blue his tongue, his teeth, as he kisses and bites, sucks dark marks onto Joy’s skin. His other hand fists tight around Joy’s dick, jerking him. 

Joy’s mouth falls open, cheeks flushed, lips dark. He opens his eyes and looks at Blue, looks right at him as Varak makes him come, screaming, splashing his seed over Varak’s big fist.

After a breathless moment, Varak brings his hand to his own mouth. He looks at Joy and licks some of Joy’s seed from his own big fingers. “Beautiful boy,” he says to Joy as he lies panting and boneless. Joy gazes back at Varak as Varak licks away every bit of the seed on his hand, then leans in and kisses Joy again, kisses him with a mouthful of his own spend. Blue moans. “Run along now, boy,” says Varak eventually. “I think he’s ready.”

With an obedient nod, Joy slides from the bed and leaves the room on wobbly legs. Varak shifts over to Blue. He kneels in front of him, his big torso towering over Blue, still bound to the post. He takes Blue’s face in both his hands and tilts it up. 

“Do you have anything to say to me, boy?”

Blue hasn’t a single other thought in his head. He says, “Fuck me, master. Please.”

Varak shudders with pleasure. “See. And I need no drug to make you want this.”

“No master. I want it. I want to beg you.”

“You do?”

“I do. Master, please fuck me. Please, master, please.”

Varak leans down and kisses Blue, tongue going deep. When he’s done he says, “Do you want my tongue before my cock, boy? Do you want me to lick you open, lick you to screaming?”

Blue chokes out a, “Yes, master,” remembering how good it had felt last time Varak had done that.

Varak reaches behind Blue and releases his wrists one-handed, the same casual move he’d used on Joy, then he pulls him down on the bed, on his back among the furs. He places Blue’s arms down above his head, and the implied suggestion is that he should keep them there. He spreads Blue’s legs obscenely wide and moves between them. His tongue presses home in one deep filthy slide, pushing in for a deep slow lap. Both Varak’s hands are on Blue’s thighs, each one almost big enough to encircle him, pressing his legs higher, up and back, letting Varak’s tongue push harder into him, deeper. Unimaginably deep. Blue wants to press back, press for more, but Varak almost has him folded in two now. Folded and twisted in place, pinned, so he’s nothing but his hole. Varak licks him again and again, and he knows what he is, he’s a bed slave, he’s here for his master’s pleasure. And his master’s pleasure is all he wants.

Varak pulls away, replacing his tongue with a thick finger, “Say it again,” he growls out.

“Fuck me, master,” Blue says, desperate with a grinding thrust of his hips, a greedy attempt to take more of that finger. He’s sobbing, writhing and keening, he can’t stop making the most humiliating _noises_. 

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes.” And that’s more sounds than words. 

“Are you sure?” Varak has two fingers inside Blue now and he’s doing something inside him that’s making him twist hopelessly, teasing some secret part of him. Suggesting a pleasure, but not quite letting Blue give himself over to it. 

“Yes, master,” Blue whines.

“When did you last spend, boy?”

“In the suck box,” Blue pants out. “In the suck box, looking at you.”

“I could send you away again,” says Varak, sliding a third finger in. It burns. It’s incredible. Blue feels like he’s being cracked open. “I could have you put back in the belt and make you wait again. What would you do then?”

“I’d die,” Blue whimpers. The idea is unthinkable.

But Varak’s hand inside him has stilled. “Wrong answer,” he says, simple and flat. “What would you do?”

Blue tries again, tries, desperate, “I’d thank you, master. I’d thank you for whatever you wanted to do to me. Your pleasure is my pleasure.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s right.” Varak is smiling, when he speaks, his voice is choked with arousal, “I’m gonna fuck you now, boy. And you’d better hope you come on my cock. Because if you don’t, you’re going back in that belt until you do.”

Blue nods, makes a strange chattering, affirmative sound, as Varak moves over him, and slips inside. 

Varak is big, thick, it’s overwhelming as he pushes deep. He kisses Blue at the same moment, Blue tastes himself on Varak’s tongue and he’s taken twice over, Varak’s cock and Varak’s tongue, sliding deep into him, making him feel so overwhelmingly _owned_.

Varak pulls back and thrusts again, harder, deeper. Again. It gets faster. Blue is moaning, screaming, Varak’s dick drags over that place inside him that his fingers were teasing and Blue sees stars. Varak does it again. Again and again. Blue is making sounds he’s never heard himself make. Desperate, strange moans. He feels his spend start to build but it just _keeps_ building, over and over. Waves of pleasure, but never quite enough to tip him over. He squirms, _tries_ to squirm, but he’s pinned so tight under Varak’s big body, legs bent almost over his head. He can do nothing except take and take it. Feel his pleasure keep on growing.

When he realises suddenly that he is _finally_ going to spill, the feel of it is already almost too much to stand. It takes him with a scream, with Varak fucking, _pounding_ into him, groaning his own pleasure as he fucks Blue through his desperate, screaming spend and speeds up, fucking harder, harder, making Blue scream for real now as it’s all suddenly far too much, until Varak comes with a sound that is more like a roar.

And then, it all stills, it all stops.

When Blue opens his eyes, Varak is staring at him, stroking his hair. He says, “You must know boy, I will not always have it in me to take you as sweetly as that.”

“What?” says Blue, “Sweetly? You almost broke me in half.” He pauses. “Master.”

Varak smiles at him. “Oh, did you not enjoy it? Because in my experience a boy who bellows like a dog to be fucked and then comes untouched is usually having a pleasant time with me.”

“My pleasure is your pleasure, master,” says Blue.


	6. Chapter 6

Blue goes back to the slave quarters, feeling happy and boneless. He climbs into bed and falls asleep feeling warm and good.

When he wakes up there’s noise around him that suggests something going on, and when he goes to see, he is quickly told by an excited Joy that it’s boat day.

Joy drags Blue by the hand to the entrance to the slave quarters. “Can he come?” Joy says to Drum who is standing there with a couple of guards and what seems like all of the slaves. 

Drum looks Blue up and down. “Yes. Alright. Not out of my sight though, you understand me? Wander off and I’ll chain you to your bed for a week.”

Blue nods.

Joy says, “Oh yeah,” and drags Blue out through the entrance hall of the castle into a square he’s never seen before and down an endless set of steps to the beach.

Three boats are being pulled up on the grey shingle. Slave boys, guards and more are swarming over them, looking at what’s in them.

“What is it?” Blue says to Joy.

“Gifts for Varak,” says Joy. 

Blue realises, as he sees what is being dragged from the boats that, of course, Salvation must receive more from The Genzies than just boys for Varak’s bed. 

He picks his way over, still hand in hand with Joy, to take a look. With a cry of happiness, Joy pulls a paper package out of the boats. “Oh, I love these,” he says, opening the package and pressing something sweet and crumbly to Blue’s mouth. He knows what it is, it’s a sweet cheese pastry they make on Raftan. It’s delicious and the taste makes him feel soft and nostalgic.

“Oi,” shouts Drum, who is in the middle of it all with a ledger. “Not until I’ve made a note of it.”

“Did you write this down?” says Samara, who is standing on the beach holding a wriggling piglet which he lifts to his lips and kisses.

“That’s fine,” Samara,” says Drum. “You can fuck her if you want. She’ll make less noise than Garamid.”

All the boys and guards laugh at this but Samara seems very happy with his new pig. 

There’s more. The boats are full of salt, honey, herbs, cured meats, bolts of cloth. The healer is there, opening jars and pots and smelling their contents, Drum organises the transport of various things to various places. The boatman gives Drum a large silver disc, a kind of token. Drum puts it in his pocket and gives the boatman another similar one.

A smaller boy, who must be Twinkle is holding a box containing three chickens. He looks delighted. Joy finds a long string of pearls and puts them around Blue’s neck.

They are laughing together when the mood changes. The boys quieten down, the guards stand straighter. Joy drops Blue’s hand. Blue turns, Varak has come down the steps to the beach. Blue stares at him. He can’t help it. The fur across the shoulders of his cloak moves in the wind, his eyes crinkle in the light. Blue wishes, more than anything, that he could just get a chance to look at Varak, to really look at him. To learn every line of him.

Varak ignores them all and goes straight to Drum. “Anything interesting?” he says.

Drum nods. “Some good knives, master. A sword too.” Drum presents a sword to Varak who looks at it, weighs it in his hands, and gives it back to Drum.

“Very nice,” says Varak. He points to some of the items at Drum’s feet. “I want that and that sent to my rooms,” he says.

“As you wish, master,” says Drum.

Varak turns and walks back up the beach. As he passes Joy and Blue he stops. He looks Blue up and down, lust lights his eyes. Smiling, he puts both his big hands on Blue’s waist, ducks his head down, and kisses Blue on the mouth. Not a soft and simple kiss, but an unambiguous claiming. A passion shot out of nowhere. Blue moans, shameless as ever when Varak touches him. 

Varak’s tongue is deep in Blue’s mouth, he lifts Blue up off the ground. Blue crosses his ankles behind Varak’s back and he thinks for a moment that this might lead to Varak throwing him down on the shingle and fucking him in front of everyone. He doesn’t care. If Varak was fucking him he wouldn’t care about anything. He’d beg and scream for it. Whatever Varak wants.

But Varak doesn’t do that. He puts the panting Blue down. “I want you, boy,” he says in a low growl of a voice. “I will have you again this afternoon, if you please.”

“Yes master,” Blue says, panting heavily. 

Varak turns back to Drum and the rest. “I want the guards for practise in a quarter of the hour, Drum. So make use of them while you can. And you, Garamid, come join us. Drum, give Garamid that sword.”

Garamid is looking at Varak, shocked. “Looks like you got a promotion, boy,” says Drum, handing Garamid the new sword. 

As he does so, Samara shouts, “No.” Dropping his piglet, he runs over to Garamid and puts his arms around him, as if this is his way of stopping anyone from taking Garamid away from him. Varak eyes them and says, “I’ll pretend I didn’t see that, Samara.”

*

After lunch Blue is taken to Varak’s room. Varak is naked on his bed, his cock in his hand and before Blue has got over the threshold he says, “I want to see you wearing this.”

On the bed, next to Varak is a pile of black lace. It’s the most beautiful delicate fabric. This much lace in one garment is an unimaginable luxury to Blue. He picks it up. It takes a moment to work out how to wear it. It’s a dress. Long, no sleeves. Pure froth. When he pulls it on it feels like he’s wearing nothing, it’s so delicate, like he’s wrapped in a cobweb.

There’s a looking glass in Varak’s room. Blue can see himself. A cloud of dark hair, his milk-pale skin glinting through the gaps in the lace. The fabric seems to swirl around him, it falls away from his legs, bares his arms and shoulders. He pulls off his hip cloth and stands in front of Varak. Varak’s eyes are dark with lust. He reaches for Blue and Blue comes nearer. Falls into Varak’s arms and into another domineering kiss. 

Varak rolls Blue over on the bed, gets on top, caging him with his limbs. He kisses Blue’s neck and says, panting, “I’m going to rip that dress right off you.”

Blue laughs. “You can’t. The fabric. The cost of it.”

But Varak takes hold of the neckline of the beautiful dress and rips it, rips the front of it open, baring Blue’s chest. Blue screams with the thrill of it and Varak falls on Blue, biting and licking, teasing his nipples until Blue is moaning and helpless and overwhelmed.

Varak lifts his head. “I had two things sent up from the boats,” he says. His voice is husky, he’s still toying with one of Blue’s nipples. Blue is squirming, it’s hard to concentrate. “Do you want to see the other.”

By the time Blue has gathered himself enough to murmur, “Yes master.” Varak is holding something in front of his face. It looks like jewellery. A chain with two sparkling clasps on each each. 

“Do you know where these go?” says Varak.

Blue shakes his head. Blue is not a naive boy. Not innocent. Izem is small city, but it has its share of rowdy taverns and brothels. And the son of a powerful man could expect to find his way into all kinds of interesting places. But Blue has never seen anything like these glittering objects before.

“They go on your nipples,” says Varak. “The grip onto them with these little teeth.” He opens one of the clamps showing the serrated metal inside. “They will hurt you.”

“You want to hurt me?” says Blue, breathless.

“You know I do.”

“Do you want me to ask for it?”

“Boy, you are…” Varak’s words trail off. He’s staring at Blue like he can’t believe what he’s looking at. “Yes. Yes I do. Beg me.”

Blue looks up at Varak. He gazes back. He knows how he must look in the dress Varak has half ripped off him, with his lips kiss-bruised and his eyes dark with lust. His hard cock is pressing up through the froth of the lace. He says, breath and lust, “Please hurt me, master.”

Varak inhales hard and looks like he might come right there. “Boy,” he says on a breath, voice fading like he can’t say more. Carefully he leans over Blue and snaps the first clamp into place. The pain is white, shooting through him as the teeth bite the already tender flesh. 

Blue cries out and Varak sighs, his cock jerks. 

Blue is panting through the pain when he says, “The other, please master, the other one. More.”

Varak nods, dumbly. He leans forward to apply the second clamp. Another zip of pure pain, fading slowly to the throbbing ache of the first. Blue gasps and looks up at Varak.

“Please,” he says, “they hurt.”

Varak is stroking his dick now, looking down at Blue, “Say that again,” he says.

“Master,” Blue manages, “they hurt.”

Varak is close quickly, fist working fast on his dick. “Open your mouth, boy,” he growls.

With a moan of pain and desire, Blue opens his mouth as Varak leans forward and takes hold of the chain between the clamps. He pulls on it, setting Blue alight with pain. Blue screams out, “Thank you master,” and Varak spills over his face, his open mouth.

*

After Varak has jerked Blue to his own spend and removed the clamps, he holds him and kisses his sticky face. “You are so special to me boy,” he says, “so dear to my heart.” With his tongue he presses his spend into Blue’s mouth.

Blue says, “Perry says you took me because of my father. Because of what happened last year. You were going to punish me and send me back so they would fear you again. You’re not going to send me back are you? Please don’t.”

“Perry,” says Varak, kissing along Blue’s jaw. “Perry is too clever for his own good.” Varak shakes his head affectionately, in a way that makes Blue feel a little jealous. “But I never planned to send you back. And the truth is I didn’t take you because of who your father is.”

“You took me because I liked it when you touched my leg?”

Varak laughs. “There is, perhaps, a little more to it than that.”

“What if he comes for me? My father? What if he tries to take me back?”

“He has no more right to take you back that he had right to stop me claiming you. You are mine by law.”

“What if he still comes? Ignores that law. Takes me by force.”

“He can’t. This island is protected. Warded by magic. You saw the boat man give Drum a seal. You need a seal to land a boat here.”

“So you _do_ use magic?”

“Perhaps a small amount. I have a reputation. I need to be sure I will be left in peace.”

Blue presses close in Varak’s arms. He smells so good. He says, softly, “Master, will you ever cane me?”

“The cane is for punishment, boy.”

“Garamid says you caned him on his first night.”

Varak makes a soft noise in Blue’s ear. “Garamid is a special boy.”

*

Days pass. Blue is called to Varak’s rooms often. Joy too. Almost every evening or afternoon Varak seems to want one or other of them. And, on a couple of memorable occasions, both of them.

Some mornings, when Blue wakes in Varak’s bed, he has been so thoroughly fucked he can barely walk to get down to breakfast.

And Blue is happy. The more days that pass the less he thinks of being anywhere but Salvation. The less he thinks of home, of his father, of any of it.

Blue and Joy spend time together when they can. Every morning Varak trains with the guards. That’s when Joy comes to Blue’s room and climbs under his blankets and kisses his face and sucks him and jerks him and makes him laugh. When they’re in the slave rooms together by the fire they kiss and stroke each other. Blue eats most of his meals sitting on Joy’s lap, Joy’s dick pressing into his back.

One evening when Blue comes back down to the slave quarters after an afternoon of being painstakingly opened up and then leisurely fucked by Varak, Garamid, who still often hangs around the slave quarters in his guard’s uniform says, “He always wants Blue or Joy, doesn’t he?”

Drum, who is escorting Blue says, “You know he likes the young ones, Garamid. You were one of the new boys once. And you didn’t fuss about it then, did you? You walked around with his cane marks all over your arse, like you ruled this place.”

Garamid can’t help but smirk at that.

Joy twines his fingers around Blue’s, “Do you have any spend left for me,” he whispers.

“I think so,” says Blue.

With a soft laugh, Joy drags Blue back to his room and pulls him into bed.

Joy is so gentle compared with Varak. He toys with Blue with his clever hands, small and soft, slipping one inside Blue while he sucks him, twisting around his dick with oil and spit. Today Joy wraps his mouth around Blue, curled on Blue’s belly like a pet, suckling his cock.

Blue is sleepy. He lies back and lets Joy take him. He might have drifted off before he even spilled if the door to his room hadn’t crashed open, shocking Blue and Joy both wide awake and upright.

In the doorway is Varak. He’s staring at the pair of them, enraged. Drum and Garamid are behind him.

“Master?” says Joy.

“This behaviour,” says Varak coldly, “is not permitted.”

“I’m sorry, master,” says Joy sweetly. “We were just comforting each other for lacking your attention.”

“We can’t just sit around waiting for you, master,” says Blue, rather more sullenly. He pulls the sheet around himself.

“No?” says Varak, stepping into the small room. “Can’t you? When you live in luxury. Warm quarters, good food and wanting for nothing. All ask is that you keep your dicks for me. I should lock you all in belts.”

“Master, I didn’t know it wasn’t permitted,” says Blue.

Varak turns to Drum, “Did you tell him?”

“I did master. I said you didn’t like the boys lying together.”

“Yes,” says Blue, “but you said that you didn’t mind and that master never comes down here.”

“I don’t mind,” says Drum. “But I’m not the master, am I?”

“Why _are_ you down here?” says Blue to Varak.

Varak looks, even in his wild anger, a littler softer. “I wanted to see you, boy. I wanted to see how you spent your time.” He hardens then. “I never dreamed it would be, betraying me.”

“Master,” says Blue not sure what he’s going to say next. But Varak holds up a hand. “Enough,” he says. “Enough now. Drum, but them in the stocks. They will both be punished.”

At that command, three guards swarm past Varak and take hold of Blue and Joy. It’s Garamid that takes Blue. Varak takes a step nearer. It seems like he enjoys seeing him held in Garamid’s arms. He touches Blue’s chin.

“What are you going to do?” says Blue.

“I told you, I’m going to punish you, boy,” he says, bending and kissing Blue hard on the mouth.

*

They’re taken to the correction yard. Two guards holding Joy, Garamid and Drum holding Blue. They are put in the stocks on the platform in the centre of the yard.

Both are locked in standing upright, necks and wrists held in the grip of the wooden frames. Drum locks each pillory closed.

“What’s he going to do to us?” Blue says.

“If he’s put you in the stocks it’ll be the cane,” says Garamid, like the expert he is.

“Will it hurt,” says Blue. He’d wanted to try the cane, but in Varak’s bed. Not like this. In the correction yard, displayed in front of the whole castle. He looks over at the suck box with a shudder. It feels like so long ago Varak had him shut in there.

“Yes,” says Garamid happily.

“No speaking when you’re in the stocks,” says Drum, exasperated. “I’ll muzzle you both.”

Blue looks at Drum as insolently as he can, but says nothing.

“The mood he’s in, I doubt he’ll keep you waiting,” says Drum, stamping down off the platform followed by the guards. Garamid lets one of his hands trail over Blue’s arse as he goes.

Drum’s right. Joy and Blue aren’t alone in the correction yard, trading wide-eyed glances, for more than minutes, before Varak appears with a long thin cane in his hand. Various boys and guards and others follow as he strides up onto the platform and drops his cloak.

“I’ll take you first, Joy,” Varak says and, as simply as that, he walks around behind Joy, flips up the fabric covering his arse, draws back the cane and hits him there, hard, with a whistle and a nasty scream from Joy that turns Blue’s belly to ice.

Joy takes another stripe with another yell and a cry of, “Please, master, please, have mercy.”

“Not yet, boy,” says Varak and hits him again. Joy makes a broken sort of scream that turns into a sob. And then he’s just screaming and crying as Varak beats him and beats him. Hard and cruel. Joy’s still sobbing when Varak stops after a dozen strokes and walks back around the stocks to stand in front of Joy. He lifts Joy’s chin with his thumb. “There, there, boy,” Varak says gently. “It’s over now. Kiss the cane for me.”

Varak lifts the cane to Joy’s lips and Joy kisses it, still sobbing, then whispers, “Thank you, master.”

“That’s right, boy,” Varak says and turns to Blue. 

Blue is terrified. “Please, master,” he says. “Please don’t.”

Varak touches Blue’s cheek. “None of that now, boy. Don’t make me gag you, when I want to hear your screams.”

“Master, please.” Blue twists a little in the stocks. But he knows there’s no way he can get free. This is going to happen. There’s nothing he can do. “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t want this,” says Varak. “I know you do.”

“Not, not like this,” Blue’s voice is half a sob. “In your bed. I wanted it in your bed.”

“Do you trust me, boy?” Varak says, more gently.

“No,” sobs Blue.

“I need you to take this for me. I need to punish you. Do you understand?”

Blue hears something then, something in Varak’s tone. Hears his desire. And he feels something in him that rises to meet that desire. Through the panic and the fear and the shame. He _wants_. He wants this so much and it’s terrifying.

Softly he presses himself into that feeling and says, through his fear, “Please punish me, master.”

Varak’s face when he says that makes any punishment worth it.

Without another word, Varak walks around behind Blue and hits him with the cane.

And _oh_ , it hurts. Not like the clamps, or the playful hand spankings Varak has given him from time to time, this pain wrenches through him. It’s savage and he can’t breath through it or do anything but take it. He jerks and struggles in the hard wood of the stocks, but he can’t move, can’t protect himself, can’t do anything. The pain sings in his ears, ripping through him. Over and over.

Stroke after stroke. Hard and relentless. It goes on and on. Blue wails and screams and…

It turns into pure white pleasure.

Blue is hard. He is panting. He doesn’t know where or what he is. All he is, is feeling. Waves of sensation. He knows what’s coming then. The inevitable. Feels it rushing to him like a storm at sea as his arousal grows and grows…

When he spills, with a scream, a great moan, an animal sound, he feels like he’s jumped off a cliff and is falling into nothing. 

The next thing he’s aware of is Varak’s hands are on him. He’s out of the stocks and he’s in Varak’s arms. Varak is carrying him like a baby. Varak carries him and carries him, out of the yard and up the stairs to his bed chamber and puts him down on the big bed amongst the furs. 

He kisses Blue over and over and whispers. “You really are my wish come true, you really are.”

“Varak,” says Blue, looking up. There are tears on Varak’s face. “Varak, master, why are you crying?”

Varak says softly, “Because I am broken and I am most broken of all with you. If I were an honourable man, I’d send you away. Back to your father.” 

“Are you an honourable man?”

“Not anymore.”


	7. Chapter 7

When Blue returns to the slave quarters he finds Joy lying by the fire. Joy looks the way he looks when he’s pleased about something. The way he looks when he’s just persuaded Blue to lie with him again or when he’s just spent between Blue’s thighs. He’s on his belly, the fire makes patterns on his bare back. His arse and the tops of his thighs are criss-crossed with cane welts and they shimmer slightly, like they’ve been treated with something.

“Are you… are you alright?” Blue says.

Joy smirks at him. “I am,” he says. “Got a nice massage from the healer after I came out of the stocks. He’s not master, but he’s got some hidden skills. I think he got his whole hand inside me.”

Blue doesn’t know how to react. “He was massaging your hole?”

Joy still looks smug. “Mostly. But who am I to question a healer’s work.” 

Blue gets close enough to sit down on the rug next to Joy. Joy smells like violets. He takes Joy’s hand “I’m glad. I never meant to get you into trouble.”

“You were worth it, handsome blackhair,” Joy says, rolling over so his head is in Blue’s lap. He’s staring right up at him. “Perhaps we should not lie together for a time, however. I’m sure you won’t miss me.” Joy winks. “When you’re not the newest toy, we can take up again, I’m sure.”

“You used to be his favourite, didn’t you?” Blue says, “Before me. You’re not upset with me that I’m his favourite?”

“It’s not like I didn’t know. He likes the young ones. And I got lucky because the twins he took last year had to go back. I got to be his special boy for two years.”

“So next Tribute he’ll get new boys and he’ll prefer them to me?”

“That’s right. That’s why you got carried off to his bed and I got the healer. That’s how he is. One day we’ll be like Garamid. One day we’ll even be like Drum. Glad to work all day that master might glance at us. But it won’t be so bad because we’ll be able to lie together every night like Garamid and Samara do.”

“But Garamid got sent to be a guard.”

“And he’s here every night, in Samara’s bed every night getting fucked senseless. Varak doesn’t care about that, does he? We’ll be together again. You’ll see.” Joy looks carefully around before leaning in and giving Blue a kiss on the lips.

*

The following evening, when Blue goes up to Varak’s room, he knows what he wants.

Varak is naked on his bed. His dick is half-hard on his thigh. It’s clear he’s eager for Blue’s hole, but Blue has a plan of his own. When Varak pats the furs next to him, Blue doesn’t climb up. He kneels on the floor and looks at Varak.

“Do you want something, boy?” says Varak, looking at Blue’s display. He pushes his tongue over is bottom lip.

Blue makes a soft moaning noise at the sight of that tongue. He can’t help it. Being on his knees is making him feel good, what he’s about to ask is making his head spin. “Yes master,” Blue says, his voice soft. “I want the cane again.”

“Cane is for punishment, boy. Did you betray me?”

“No master. I want something from you. I thought you might give it to me if you caned me in return.”

One of Varak’s eyebrows rises. “You want something? And what would that be, boy?”

“I want to ask you some questions. And take the cane for your answers.”

Varak’s response to that is a single syllable of a laugh. “I can cane you whenever I please, boy. You are mine by law. I don’t have to buy the right by answering your curiosity.”

“Yes, you do own me. But I know you like rules. Do you like mine?” Blue looks up, expectant. He’d meant to try his best to look alluring, but he doesn’t need to try. He’s so aroused by what he’s proposing he’s squirming on the floor. “I know you like it when I beg.”

“I do.” Varak swallows visibly. “And I like seeing you on your knees like that, princess.”

“And would you like seeing me tied to your bed, trading answers for cane stripes?”

Varak’s indulgent smiles holds much of his answer. “You are quite a treasure, aren’t you?” he says. “Get up on the bed.”

Blue climbs up and spreads himself, face down on the furs. Varak makes quick work of tying his wrists and ankles with soft ropes. Blue has only been tied to Varak’s bed once or twice before and never so completely as this. He moans when the last rope is in place, squirming. It feels so good to be so helpless, so open to Varak. 

When Varak sits back down on the bed next to him, Blue turns his head and sees that Varak is holding a thin pale cane in his hands. Blue’s mouth dries at the sight of it.

Varak says, “You want this, boy.”

Blue nods.

“Kiss it.”

Varak holds the cane in front of Blue’s mouth and he kisses it as sensuously as he would kiss Varak’s dick. Then says, “I want to know if you’ll grow tired of me when I get older and you have younger boys? Will you put me in the guard like Garamid and not touch me anymore?” 

“I see.” Varak swipes Blue’s arse with the cane. It’s hard and fast, the pain instant and intense. Blue gasps into the bed. It’s awful and good. 

“No. I won’t move on from you like I have before. You must know, you’re not like the other boys here.”

“They’re all blond. They say it was because your lover was blond and he died.”

Varak hits Blue again. He cries out and rubs his hardening dick against the furs.

“No.” Varak sighs. “Boy, stories get… twisted. And the real story is long.” Varak stops, thinking. Then he strokes Blue’s arse with his free hand and says, “Let me ask you a question. Why are you called Blue?”

“My mother called me Blue. My father said it was because my hair was so black the sunshine made it look almost Blue. Even when I was a baby. My nurse said it was because my skin was so pale you could see my blood, running blue, beneath it. But I don’t know which is the real reason and my mother was dead before I could ask her. So I decided it was because it was her favourite colour.”

“I met your mother once. Long ago.”

“At Tribute?”

Blue gets another stripe of the cane for that. He gasps before Varak says, “No. Before there was a Tribute. Before I was a hero. I met her when I petitioned the council on Klim for support to travel to Perpetua and ask the Great Wizard Goren of the North how to defeat The Horror.”

“Did she help you?”

The next cane stroke is harder. Blue cries out into the furs from the pain. Varak’s voice is thick with arousal when he says, “This was more than twenty years ago, boy. Your mother was the age you are now. She didn’t have the power to help me, even if she’d wanted to. I was talking to her parents. Your grandparents. The wealthiest family in The Genzies.”

“Was my uncle Caspar there?”

Varak hits Blue again. Blue bucks and jolts but bites down the cry. Varak gasps and there’s a moment before he says, “He was. He was the eldest son. And no, he did not want to help me. But your other uncle did. Hilde.”

“Hilde died before I was born,” says Blue.

“He did. Do you know how he died?”

“Died on a sea voyage, I think. Caspar never talked of him much.”

Varak sets down the cane and strokes Blue’s arse, his warm hand slipping up and over it, worrying at the marks and running the pad of his finger over Blue’s hole. Blue sighs and writhes. “Caspar doesn’t know what happened to him. None of your mother’s family do. None of them know because when the family refused to help me, Hilde stole a pot of silver and ran away that night. He came and found me, helped me buy a passage to Perpetua and came with me.” Varak takes a long breath. “You want to know why I took you as Tribute, when I’d sworn not to take any boys this year? I couldn’t resist you, because you look like him. Like Hilde.”

“Was Hilde your page?” says Blue.

“Yes.”

“The one you killed? Your lover?”

“I told you, this was a long, long story,” says Varak. He dips his head and kisses Blue on the cheek. “I’ve never told it all before, but I suppose you’ve earned it. Before I was the Saviour of the Genzies, I was a man and I lived in Black Gull on Plesta. Plesta was one of the first islands attacked by The Horror. But the night it came I was away. My lover was a silversmith and I would take whatever work I could get. There was always work for men who looked like me. That month I’d taken a job with a slave boat. Taking slaves from the islands and selling them to Calisto. It was filthy work. But the silver was good. Boat master told me he’d been offered more for me than for the whole boat load of slaves from the islands. On the voyage home I decided I wouldn’t take such work again, but perhaps the gods thought once was enough to be punished for, because when I got home everything I loved in the world was gone including my lover.” He strokes Blue’s neck. “I saw the aftermath of that attack. Body parts strewn over the island, burnt sheep, burnt corpses. Nothing left alive. There were many attacks after Plesta, of course. You know they offered a great prize for destroying The Horror. Anyone who did so, could claim any prize he wished.”

“I know,” says Blue. “They teach it in school.”

“But I knew well there was no simple way to beat it, many tried. But what chance of winning by taking an army or a siege engine to attack The Horror. How even? When it was impossible to know where the next attack would even come? And my mother, she was long dead at this point, but she was from the Northern Lands. She knew about magic. I’d learned from her of Goren the great wizard of the North and how he spoke with the fey. The power he had. I knew magic was our only chance to destroy The Horror. And because of your uncle Hilde, I got to go to him.”

“You went to Perpetua? You asked him? Did he help you?” 

Varak picks up the cane and hits Blue with it three times. Hard. Blue explodes with pain. For the first time he struggles in the ropes. “Master,” he sobs out, shocked. He’d half forgotten about the price of his questions.

“I left Hilde at camp and went to find the hut where he lived. I found him there, a tall old man, living quite simply with his son. The son was about five, a striking boy, even paler than you. And Goren of the North told me two things.” Varak plays with the cane in his fingers. “He told me what the Horror and he told me the only way I would defeat it.”

“What was it?” There are tears on Blue’s face as he asks.

Another hard stripe and Blue sobs and jerks again. Varak says, “The answer is so simple. It was men. The Horror was cruel men. Ships hidden over the horizon, small quiet boats under cover of darkness, who’s only mission was to take one island and destroy it, reign death upon it. Brutal invasions of the smallest islands targeted at random. A simply plan so nasty and cruel it would be mistaken for a monster. But it was men.”

“What men? Who?”

Varak hits Blue twice, sighing with it then saying, “Calisto. Twenty years ago, Calisto wanted The Genzies. But it’s hard to take all the islands, even with a fleet. Invasion, seemed impossible, so they tried another strategy. The Horror. Goren told me their plan, to offer The Genzies protection from The Horror if they’d only treaty to be part of the Empire and convert to worshipping Xe.”

“But then how you could stop them? A whole Empire. You’re one man. One man and my uncle.” Blue pauses. “What happened to my uncle?” 

Varak hits Blue with the cane again and the noise is different, the pain still a sharp bright line. But Varak gasps. When Blue looks he sees the cane has broken in half. Varak tosses it aside and climbs on top of him, covering him with his big body. His dick is very hard and he drags it slowly over Blue’s hole as he says, “The only way to defeat them was to be even more cruel and ruthless than they were. Goren said he would help me, but only if I could prove I was capable of the cruelty required. He told me to go back to my camp and kill my page. Hilde. To torture him first. And to refuse to explain why, no matter how he begged. That would prove I was capable of the viciousness needed.”

“Were you and Hilde lovers?”

“Yes,” Varak says, dropping kisses all over Blue’s shoulders as he presses an oiled hand down between their bodies, “It is a long voyage from The Genzies to Bow. He had become enamoured of me during the petitioning. His attention was a comfort. But I did not know I loved him in return until after he died.”

“So you did it? You killed him?”

Varak slips a finger inside Blue. “No. I tried. I went back to camp, where Hilde was sleeping, and took out my knife. I meant to do it, but I could not. I couldn’t kill Hilde. I couldn’t even hurt him.”

“What did you do?”

“I went back to Goren. I told him I couldn’t do it. I begged him to show me another way. I offered to submit to anything, any other trial. He sent me to Perpetua.”

“Why? And, I thought humans couldn’t go to Perpetua.”

Varak is still fucking his fingers into Blue, it’s making him desperate, but he forces himself to listen. “No. The land is warded and a human would die if they tried to cross into it. However, if a human walks to the foot of the glass mountains and lies down to sleep there, the fey may come and touch them.”

“What happens if the fey touch a human?”

“That human becomes ruthless. Ruthless enough to defeat Calisto.”

“And you did it?” Blue gasps. Already feels close to spending for Varak’s hand alone. “You let yourself be touched by the fey?”

“Yes.”

“And it worked?”

“After that night I killed Hilde. Savagely, and it was easy. After that night in the mountains, I was different. Part of my soul was gone. I was a creature brought alive by cruelty. Hilde screamed under my blade and I laughed with happiness. Goren was satisfied. He gave me a magical eye that would allow me to see Calisto’s hidden ships. Once I could find them, I could take them. I was unstoppable, my blood was fire. While their armies were destroying an island’s people, I would board the ship and kill every man aboard. I’d nail them to the decks alive. I’d flay the captain and chain him to the mast. I’d leave that ship swimming in blood. After I’d done that a dozen times, The Horror stopped coming for fear of me. For fear of a monster worse than them. But I was left barely human by all that I’d done.

“I claimed the reward. I took Salvation and shut myself away I was still delirious with the fey’s touch and and the blood I was steeped in. But the Genzies started to send me gifts and one of those gifts was a dozen blond haired pleasure slaves. I took them, Drum was one of them, and I was cruel to them. I flogged them and I fucked them, but I didn’t kill them. And it seemed to help the madness to lie with them. So I asked for a Tribute every year. A dozen boys for my bed. I knew I would be cruel to them, but I thought I could control it well enough. And I thought it might heal me.”

“Did it work? You are less cruel now. Than when you first slept at the foot of the mountains,” Blue says between gasps. Varak has him so close now. He’s panting in the ropes, but he can’t move enough to get that touch right where he needs it to spill.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the touch of the fey has faded over time. Although, when I saw you, I think that old cruelty reawakened somewhat. I do love to see you suffer, boy. It lights me inside when you beg and cry in pain. You look so like the first man I killed in madness. Like I told you, I should have sent you back to your father. That madness is still in me, and it deepens when I see you. That first moment I saw you offered as Tribute, I wanted to destroy you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Blue manages.

“So am I. Mostly. But you should know, the fey broke something within me. Something that can never be fixed. I’m not a good man. And you make me worse.”

“But that’s not your fault. You gave up a part of yourself to save The Genzies.”

“From Calisto. And fourteen years after I did that, Calisto took The Genzies anyway. By politics.” Varak takes his fingers out of Blue and drives his dick into him. Blue needs Varak inside him so much that the feel of it almost makes him want to cry.

Varak fucks Blue hard and all Blue can think as he thrashes in the rope and screams and begs for his finish, is that whatever the fey did to Varak, he is glad of it.

*

A little later, as they lie together on the bed, Blue unroped and in Varak’s arms, bells begin to ring. Varak is up off the bed before Blue realises anything is happening. By the time Blue has sat up, Varak is wearing his breeches and a breast plate.

“What is that? What do those bells mean?”

Varak reaches out a hand to Blue. “Come with me.” He takes Blue by the wrist and pulls him off the bed. He throws his cloak over Blue’s shoulders. Blue remembers the last time he wore that cloak.

Blue’s bare feet skitter on the stone floor, as Varak pulls him across the room. “What is it?”

“Come now. Quickly.”

Varak pulls Blue down the stairs, ignoring his questions. When they reach the bottom, Drum stands there. He’s pale. He says, “At least five boats.”

“Calistan?” says Varak.

Drum nods.

“Get the boys into the holdfast. Take him.” Varak pushes Blue into Drum’s arms.

Blue squirms in Drum’s grip. “Master, what is happening?”

But Drum drags him away. “Come with me boy,” he says. “Don’t bother the master now.”

*

The holdfast turns out to be a keep on the lower floors of the castle. When Blue gets inside he finds all the other slave boys are there. Joy puts his arms around Blue and draws him into a corner.

“None of you boys are to worry,” Drum is saying. “You all know Varak has been training the guards for this for years.”

“It doesn’t matter,” mutters Perry. “It’s too many.” Drum shoots a warning look at him.

“Where’s Garamid?” says Samara, standing by Drum.

“You know where he is,” says Drum calmly. “He’s out there fighting.”

“He should be in here,” says Samara. “Varak should never have taken him for the guard. Let me go and get him.”

“Sit down, boy. Now,” says Drum. His voice level compared to Samara’s anger and panic.

“You can’t make me sit down, Drum,” says Samara. He finishes his sentence by pushing Drum backwards, Drum falls heavily against the stone wall of the keep. Joy startles, gripping Blue’s arm and Blue realises, that with all the guard outside, there’s not much Drum can do to control Samara. Or any of them.

Drum is on the floor and Samara is drawing back the bolts of the door.

Perry shouts, “Samara, no,” and tries to get to him, to stop him. But another bigger slave grabs him, holding him back.

Fights and scuffles start breaking out all around the keep. Several slave boys grab hold of Drum and drag him into a corner. Blue and Joy press closer. Samara gets the door of the keep open and runs out. A couple of other slaves follow him. There’s a moment where it looks like Perry will get the door closed again, but before he can a soldier appears dressed in the Calistan colours and shouts, “Here. In here.”

In the next moment, the holdfast is full of soldiers. Blue is grabbed, dragged, yelling, away from Joy and out of the keep. A tall soldier stops the man holding him and grabs Blue’s face staring at him. 

“It’s him,” he says. “Fetch Mizral. Tell him his son’s alive.”


	8. Chapter 8

There’s a knock on Blue’s bedroom door and a servant girl comes in carrying a tray. When she gets near Blue, in his bed, he throws up an arm and knocks it out of her hands. She screams as a bowl of porridge and a cup of ale and an apple fall onto the floor, along with the tray. Porridge splatters up, over the bed linen.

The girl runs for the door and a guard outside shouts, “Fetch Mizral.”

Blue jumps out to the bed and runs for the door, but when he reaches it, it’s closed and when he tries to turn the handle, it is locked.

Blue hammers on it shouting, “Let me out of here. Let me out. Where is he? Where’s Varak?”

No one replies. 

Blue is sitting on the floor of the room when the door finally opens and his father steps inside. He stays close to the door and says, “How are you, Blue?”

“Why am I still locked in my room?”

“We just need to be sure you are safe,” says Mizral, his breath is catching like he’s nervous. Nervous or disgusted.

“I was safe on Salvation.”

“I doubt that. Blue, when we found you, you were naked, you were covered in dubious injuries.”

Blue looks his father dead in the eye. “Those injuries are from things I wanted. They’re from things I begged him to do to me.”

Mizral looks at Blue, full of pity, he walks over to the bed and sits on it. “You have been bewitched. A period of isolation should help you change your mind about what was done to you. We are sure now that Varak has been using dark magic from The Northern Lands.”

Blue makes a face at his father. “That’s lies. He had a little bit of magic to find where The Horror was and something to stop boats coming to the island without a token.” He pauses. “How did you get onto the island?”

“The Calistans had one of the tokens. I believe they captured his boatman.” Mizral clearly doesn’t think this matters.

“He didn’t have any dark magic. He didn’t do anything to me with magic.”

“Have you eaten anything yet?”

“I’m not eating until you tell me where Varak is.”

“I’ve told you, he can’t get to you. You don’t need to worry where he is.” Mizral tries to put a hand on Blue’s shoulder. 

Blue shoves it away. “I’m not _worried_.”

MIzral shakes is head. “I’m sorry we didn’t come for you sooner. I had to wait for the Calistan ships,” he says. “And I’m sorry I let him take you. I thought we would only be a day behind. And, how much could he do to you in one day? But we were delayed.”

“Do you want to know, father, what Varak did to me, in one day?” Blue says, thinking of it. The Tiger’s Eye. The suck box. How could his father even begin to understand what had happened to him. How it had changed him. How it had made him.

Mizral swallows.“I tried. I sent those twins. The assassins. The year before you turned 18. I thought that would be enough to stop The Tribute going ahead, for your year, at least.”

“That was you? You tried to kill him?”

“They’d never have killed him. I just thought they’d scare him.”

“I think they just made him angry,” says Blue, letting his voice soften. “Where is he father? Where is Varak? Is he dead? Please tell me. Just tell me if he’s alive.”

Mizral shakes his head. “He’s in the castle dungeons. There’s going to be put on trial tomorrow. And then we will be done with him. The Tribute. All of it.”

Blue’s overwhelmed by that knowledge. Izem Castle is less than a mile away. Varak is less than a mile away. But he says, “What trial? A trial for what?”

“He is guilty of a great corruption. He lied to us, Blue. My son, he lied to us all. Calisto defeated The Horror not him. He claimed it was him when he had just happened upon a lucky circumstance, simply because the attacks ceased during is campaign. And he took The Tribute, which, under Calisto law is immoral.”

“The Genzies isn’t bound by Calisto law.”

“That will change very soon.”

Blue ignores that. “Varak made the greatest sacrifices to defeat The Horror. He went to Perpetua. He saw Goren of the North. Goren told him what to do and he did it and it worked.”

“There’s no proof of that. There are rumours he went there, but Goren has been dead years. All we know for sure is that he went to fight The Horror and it stopped, but it wasn’t anything to do with him. It turns out Calisto were also being attacked by the same monstrous creature. They fought and killed it. We’ve seen their records. Varak lied to The Council and claimed the honour. He will be put on trial for his crimes and hung.”

*

Blue spends the morning pacing around his room and trying to puzzle out a way to get out and get to the Castle, to Varak. But the only window in his room opens onto a long drop to the street. The door, he knows, is always locked and guarded.

After a few hours there’s a knock at that locked door, followed by the sound of the bolts being drawn. It opens and a servant girls stands there. She has a tray of food and a basket. “Your father sent me to clean up, sir,” she says as she sets the tray aside. Blue looks at the remains of his breakfast, spilled over the bed. He nods and walks over to the table where the girl has set the tray of bread and cheese. He looks at it. 

“You should eat,” says the girl, pulling the soiled linens from the bed and piling them into the basket. 

Blue looks at her. She’s wearing a headscarf, folded to hide much of her face, but now he looks closely. And he knows who this is.

“Perry?”

“Shush.” Perry puts and finger to his lips. “Don’t let the guards hear you.”

Blue rushes to Perry and grabs him, hugs him hard, then holds him away, holds him at arms length. “Are you, safe? Is everyone safe?”

Perry shakes his head. “Not sure,” says Perry. “Not about everyone. A lot of the boys are being kept to be sold on as slaves, probably sent to Caen. Guards are mostly dead.”

“Is Garamid dead?”

Perry nods. “Yeah. And Samara.”

Blue feels his heart drop. It seems hardly possible. Were there ever any people so alive in this world as Garamid and Samara. He swallows. “Drum?”

“No word on Drum. Reckon he might be in the dungeons somewhere if he’s alive. No one saw him die.”

“And you? You’re just…free?”

“Pretty much. High borns like me and you got sent back to our families. My mother’s Lady Ebb,” Perry says this with a shrug. “We actually met once, before. When my mother joined the council, but you never remembered.”

“Sorry, no. I never recognised you.” But when Blue thinks of it, he does remember part of the story. Five years ago, after the first Calistans had joined the council, Varak had chosen one of their sons as part of his tribute. It had been a cause of celebration. A sign that Calisto were genuine in their claim not to want to alter in The Genzies laws and customs. And that had been Perry. If he’d thought about it, he would have realised. 

“Varak took me because he wanted to know what Calisto were planning,” says Perry. “He thought I might know, because of my mother.”

“Is that why you thought he’d taken me because of my father. He took you because of your mother.”

“Yes,” Perry smiles. “Was I wrong?”

“Partly. It was because of my uncle.”

Perry narrows his eyes, thinking. Then stretches them wide. “Oh! Your uncle, Hilde. And so…” he points at Blue. “Hilde! Hilde was the page. That would all make sense.”

“You know about that. He told you?”

“He told me some of it. He told me he’d had to kill his page when we visited Goren. He didn’t tell me who the page was. But your uncle Hilde vanished, didn’t he?”

Blue frowns at him. “How do you know that?”

“Before we came here, “Perry says, “My mother made me study the great men of The Genzies. Your uncle Caspar was one of them. Your father, another. I know Caspar’s sister married Mizral, that his brother vanished and was claimed dead at sea, and that before he took is father’s mantle, he went on a voyage to look for him.”

“I didn’t know he looked for him.”

Perry shrugs. “Probably before you were born.”

“Varak told me he’d never told the whole story of how he defeated The Horror before. He only told me the day of the invasion. I had to trade him cane stripes for it.”

Perry laughs. “I did something like that. But I traded him information. He wanted to know about Calisto and I wanted to know about him.”

“What did you tell him about Calisto?”

“What I knew, which wasn’t much, but that their had been a series of deaths of council members that had changed the opinion about Calisto to the point were it seemed viable that The Genzies and Calisto could treaty. He said he thought those deaths were deliberate assassinations, and he might have been right.”

“Did he tell you The Horror was Calisto?”

Perry’s eyes go wide again. “No.”

“That was their first attempt to take The Genzies. This is their second.”

“No wonder they want Varak dead, if he knows that,” says Perry.

“He can’t prove it though, can he?” says Blue, he sits down heavily on his bed. And then, softly, he says what he’s been putting off saying, “Do you know where Joy is? Do you know what happened? Is he alive?”

Perry nods. “He’s in the dungeons. Waiting to be shipped to Caen. That’s why I’m here. I thought you’d want to say goodbye to him. I have a plan.”

*

Perry’s plan is simple, but it works. Perry climbs into Blue’s bed when the fresh linens from his basket are in place and Blue puts on the dress and the headscarf and leaves with the basket of soiled cloth. He’s out of the house and running for the castle in minutes. 

He sheds the disguise as soon as he’s inside the castle, beneath it he’s wearing his finest hose and jerkin and his family crest on a chain. The kind of outfit he would wear if his father ever sent him on official business. He’s hoping to be recognised as Mizral’s son. He’s counting on the fact that his father hasn’t told anyone that he’s raving about Varak, locked in his room refusing to eat. He isn’t bothered walking through the castle. All kinds of people pass through the halls of Klim’s seat of power. When he reaches the heavy door to the dungeons, the guard on duty stands straight.

“Do you know who I am?” Blue says to him. 

The guard shakes his head.

“My name is Blue. I am Mizral’s son. My father has sent me to prepare the documents from the slave boys from Salvation.”

The guard narrows his eyes. There is something like a smirk on his lips. “If you’re Mizral’s son then you’re one of the boys taken as Tribute.”

“That’s right,” says Blue, lifting his chin as the guard’s eyes rove over him, thinking about what might have happened to him. How he’d been taken and used by Varak. Blue finds he likes the thought that people might look at him like that. Will look at him that way forever. “That’s why I’ve been given the task. Who better to assess them and write their documentation.”

“Alright,” says the guard. “They’re in the big holding room. Left and then right.” And he opens the door.

Blue finds his way to the holding room and spins a similar tale with the guard on the door. When the heavy door is drawn open for him, his heart stops at the sight of twenty familiar faces. And one in particular.

With a yell of, “Handsome blackhair,” Joy is racing towards him, so hard and fast that when they make contact he knocks him back into the wall, with a kiss and a tangle of arms at his neck. 

When the kiss breaks and Joy looks up at him, there are tears in his eyes. “I thought you must be dead,” he says. “I thought everyone still alive was here.”

Blue shakes his head. “No, they sent high born boys like me and Perry back to their families.”

“Perry’s alive?” says Joy, bright happiness in his voice. Joy leans close. “I have something to tell you,” Joy whispers.

It shouldn’t really be that surprising to him, Blue supposes, that Joy has seduced a guard. “I’m amazed it’s just one,” Blue says as Joy explains, kissing him and twining their fingers together.

“Give me time,” says Joy. “And anyway, I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in The Harem of Caen, do I? I thought we ought to try and find a way to escape.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Not yet,” says Joy. “But like I say, give me time. I got as far as getting a guard that will help us.”

“Joy, we don’t _have_ time,” says Blue. “Varak’s trial is tomorrow. And they’ll ship you out as soon as it’s done. We need to do something now.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Getting in here was as far as I’d got. And getting into a dungeon is far easer than getting out.”

“You know who you ought to talk to?”

“Perry? He’s locked in my bedroom.”

Joy raises an eyebrow. Then says, “I didn’t mean him. I meant master.”

Blue exhales at the idea. “I want to see master more than anything, but how can I get to him? They’ll never let me.”

“I just told you,” says Joy. “I have a tame guard.”

*

Blue is shaking as the cell door to one of the dungeon’s lowest cells is opened by Joy’s tame guard. He stands aside with a nod to let Blue through.

Blue steps forward and there he is, Varak. He’s dirty and in chains. Great heavy ones at his wrists and his ankles and his throat. There’s grime on his face and bruises on his bare chest and legs. But his eyes sparkle to see Blue. 

“Boy?” he says, his voice is rough and disbelieving. 

Blue runs to him. “Master!” He throws himself into Varak’s lap. Their faces meet, their mouths, their tongues. Varak tastes stale in a way he never used to, he smells unwashed and sour, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the way his body is still warm and heavy. The chains clatter as Varak pulls his arms around Blue and whispers, “Boy. Thank all the gods you’re safe, boy.”

Blue looks up at Varak. Holds his chin and studies his face. “Are you alright? Have they hurt you?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” Varak says, smiling, smiling at Blue like he can’t help it.

“My father says they’re going to be a trial. They’re going to say you lied. That you never defeated The Horror. That Calisto did.”

“I know,” Varak nods. “And I can’t exactly prove it can I? The Genzies council knew I was out fighting The Horror. When The Horror stopped coming I knew it was down to me. And they agreed, who else could it have been?”

“Calisto say it was them.”

Varak nods. “Calisto want to make The Genzies part of the empire. They can’t do that without having The Genzies abide by their laws. And The Genzies can’t do that while they still owe me.”

“But The Horror was Calisto.”

“That’s right, boy. But you’d better not let anyone know you know that. Or you’ll be on trial next.”

“What for?” says Blue. “I’m Mizral’s son. What would they charge me with.”

Varak laughs darkly as his hand finds the seam of Blue’s breeches. A finger slips down it. He finds Blue’s hole though the fabric and presses there. Blue gasps, “Master, please,” head back, throat open.

Varak laughs in his throat. “That for a start,” he says. “When The Genzies are ruled by Calisto laws.”

Blue looks over to the closed door of the cell, then back at Varak. “Master,” he says, all other thoughts lost. “Fuck me.”

Varak looks at him and swallows. There’s such desire in his eyes. “Are you sure, boy. I have not been well kept.”

“I don’t care,” says Blue. “I don’t care. I need to feel you.” He says that, not saying, that he needs this because it might be for the last time. The idea of that, that he can’t stop the trial, can’t stop Varak being executed, is too much.

Varak tips Blue off his lap onto the floor of the cell. It’s dirty, just flattened mud. Blue sighs. Varak’s bed was covered in furs, and it smelled like musk and expensive oils. This room smells like old piss and Varak’s stale sweat, but he doesn’t care as Varak pulls down his breeches, spreads his arse and licks him. Nothing else matters but the feelings he loves.

Blue yells at the touch. Familiar and yet, always exciting. Varak licks him until he is crying into the dirt, his dick, under him is hard and leaking. Then Varak’s finger, careful and slow, is at his hole and Varak’s mouth is at is ear, saying, “I don’t have anything, boy. I’ll make it as wet as I can.”

Under him, gasping, Blue returns, “I brought oil, master. In my pocket.” Joy had thought of everything.

Varak makes a dark noise of pleasure. He finds the pocket of Blue’s breeches, tangled at his ankles and stretches Blue with slippery fingers, then fucks into with a groan and Blue says, “Master, do it hard. I know you’ve missed me.”

Varak is laughing then, increasing the speed and the force of his thrusts. It’s quick then, quick and wild. Both of them falling fast towards release. And when they cry out together and spill together it’s as good as it’s ever been. 

Varak holds Blue in his arms. Blue rolls around to look at him and kisses him once. “I should go,” he says. “I can’t be found here.”

“Alright, boy,” Varak says. He voice has a pain behind it. This is it. This is the end now. Varak says, “Know that I love you, boy.”

And Blue says, “I love you too, master.”

*

Uncle Caspar’s house is one of the grandest in Izem. He’s not the kind of man it’s easy to get an audience with. But Blue is family. When he’s shown into his uncle’s receiving room he knows this is his one and only chance. 

“Good afternoon, nephew. I am sure your father is concerned for where you are.”

“Send a messenger to tell him I’m here if you want,” says Blue. “Just answer me a question first.”

“I already have sent such a messenger. But, if you wish, we can talk while we wait for him to come collect you.”

“Do you know what really happened to Hilde. Your brother. My uncle,” Blue says quickly, hoping he can get it all out before he’s cut off.

“He disappeared. He died at sea, we think.”

“He left the night after Varak petitioned your parents for silver to go to Perpetua and find Goren of the North.”

Caspar nods. “Yes. What of it?”

“So when you went in search of him, is that where you went? Did you find Goren of the North?”

Caspar swallows. He looks around the room as if a little wild. As if panicking. Then stills himself and is the same calm, impossibly powerful man he was. “Goren was dead,” says Caspar. “Killed by the fey. Inevitable, really, after the way he behaved.”

Blue’s heart drops. If Caspar never spoke to Goren all is lost. But then Caspar says, “His son… I spoke to his son.” Caspar takes a breath. It seems, for a moment, like he might not say more, but then he says, “He was only young, that boy. About 11. Strange and pale, but he remembered Varak. And he remembered what his father had told him to do. He told me the whole story. How he’d been sent to kill his page. How he had to have himself touched by the fey to do it. All of it.”

“Did he tell you that The Horror was Calistan ships?”

“Yes,” says Caspar quietly.

“Uncle, you need to come to Varak’s trial tomorrow and give evidence. You need to tell them what you know. They’ll listen to you. You know they will.”

“Why should I?” says Caspar. “Why should I help that monster when he killed my brother?”

“Because he killed Hilde to defeat The Horror. To save The Genzies from Calisto. And that was what Hilde wanted to help him do. If Varak is executed then Calisto take us and it was all for nothing. Then Hilde died for nothing. Please, Uncle, years ago, Varak petitioned your family and he was turned away. And you were wrong then, you know you were wrong. You should have helped him. Like you should help me now. So this time, you could make the right choice and help Varak.” 

There are sounds outside. Blue hears the distinct sound of his father’s voice. The door to the receiving room crashes open. Mizral is there, face red and angry. He glares at Blue. “Lady Ebb’s son was in your bed. Can you explain that to me? You’re lucky it’s not your trial tomorrow, son.”

To guards are racing across the room, grabbing hold of Blue.

Blue turns to Caspar. “Uncle Caspar,” he says desperately, “Don’t you think I look like him?”


	9. Chapter 9

Blue walks behind his father into the largest hall of Izem’s Castle. He’s wearing his family robes. He’s sat in this room for trials before, part of his education as Mizral’s son. But he’s never cared about the result of a trial before. 

Varak is already there. In the dock is an iron cage that’s used for the most dangerous prisoners. Varak sits inside it. He looks tired. There are bruises on his face that weren’t there when Blue saw him before. 

He looks at Blue and smiles a soft smile, pleased to see him despite everything.

Blue takes his seat. His heart his beating so hard. 

Lady Ebb is running the trial. Perry’s mother is a tall, elegant woman who looks only a little like her son. Her brown hair is very shiny and twisted high on her head, in a style Blue associates with Calistan women.

They begin promptly, like they cannot wait to hang Varak. 

Lady Ebb outlines the case as Blue expected it. Varak lied about defeating The Horror. Varak took The Tribute as a result of the lie. “Including,” Lady Ebb says, with a soft crack to her voice, “my own beloved son.” She points to Perry, sitting beside her, his face a blank. “Who I was glad to offer to a great Saviour. And horrified to discover had been taken from me as a Tribute for nothing.” She raises her voice as she says this last part and the crowds in the public gallery grumble. There are one or two boos and a distinctive shout of, “Liar”. Blue shifts in his seat. Varak, in the dock cage, doesn’t react. He stares forward, face like stone. 

Lady Ebb’s opening statement gets no better. She presents documents from the Calisto court showing how their lands were also attacked by The Horror and how their fleet destroyed it. There are more rumblings from the gallery at this. The judge, a small, elderly man, who Blue has never seen before, looks at he papers and agrees they say what Lady Ebb declares. 

This is the point where Blue can take no more. He jumps up and says, “She’s lying. None of this is true. Those papers are fake.”

Mizral reaches for Blue and tries to pull him back into his seat. Blue tears away and takes the floor.

“Let me testify,” Blue says to the judge. “You know who I am. Let me.”

The judge is about to speak, when behind Blue, Varak says, in a low dark voice, “Sit down, boy.”

Blue turns to him. “No, master, let me.” This causes more chattering from the gallery, but Blue keeps going. “Listen to me, The Horror was Calisto. It _was_ their fleet. Varak attacked them so violently they stopped coming. They were trying to take The Genzies by terror. Now they’re trying to take us by politics. They’re already trying to change our laws when they said they never would.”

Blue takes a breath. Everyone in the court sees to be talking.

“Enough,” says the judge, eventually. “Blue, dear boy, we are aware you have been through a highly traumatic experience on Salvation. And I am sure everyone here regrets…”

“I wasn’t traumatised,” Blue shouts over him. “I loved it. I love him.” And Blue points to Varak, who is glowering at him. Blue runs to the cage. He presses himself to the bars. “I love you, master,” he says.

Varak doesn’t move. “Boy, this won’t help, don’t do this,” he says quietly. “After they kill me you’ll need to live here.”

“Blue, if you would let me finish,” says the judge. “Your claims sound like a result of the trauma you suffered, but I am willing to listen to them if you have evidence.”

Blue looks at the judge. “Evidence?” he says.

“Yes,” says the judge. “Do you have any evidence? Or someone of standing who can verify your claims.”

Blue shakes his head. “I don’t, I don’t think I do,” he says.

“Then please sit down,” says the judge. “This is a court. There are rules.”

Blue walks back sadly to his seat.

But before he takes it, someone else stands up. Blue looks across the table of council officials with his heart beating harder and harder. His Uncle Casper is the one on his feet. He says, “I can verify what my nephew says.”

Lady Ebb stares at him. But the judge says, “Lord Caspar. Thank you. I will be glad to hear it.”

Caspar glances at Blue. He clears his throat, “As some of you know, before my father died I went to search for my brother Hilde. What you do not know is that I suspected he had gone with Varak to the borders of Perpetua to ask Goren of the North how to defeat the fey.”

Again, the court is alive with interested chatter and surprise.

“And did you meet with Goren?” says Lady Ebb.

“No. He was dead when I arrived. I spoke with his son who told me everything my nephew says is true. Varak visited Goren. Goren told him the attacks came from Calisto and gave him the means too defeat them.”

“And how old was his son?”

“Ten, maybe eleven years old.”

“So, the word of a child.”

Caspar lifts his chin. “Do you know who that child is now, Lady Ebb? Goren’s son Myr is Court Magician of Bow and the Northern Lands.”

“And he is of the fey,” says Lady Ebb. “Born of a depravity. Married, unethically, to his own Chancellor. Are we supposed to take this testimony?”

“Yes,” says the judge. “Lord Caspar is head of one of the oldest families in The Genzies. Myr of the North is a man of royal standing who’s word we can trust.”

“I would like to suggest,” says Caspar, “in light of these events that I travel to the Court of Bow and seek and official statement from Myr of the North about the meeting between his father and Varak, Saviour of The Genzies. And meanwhile, I ask that Varak be freed, returned to his island along with all of it’s inhabitants who wish to return with him.”

Blue can’t help himself. “Uncle,” he shouts. “Uncle, thank you,” and races across the court room to embrace his uncle, who seems a little vexed by it. But the crowds are cheering. 

The judge says, “This sounds like an appropriate action to me.”

Lady Ebb sounds alarmed as she says, “Calisto will be deeply upset by these traitorous, immoral words and deeds. Lord Caspar, if you do this, you will likely return to a country a war with Calisto.”

Next to Lady Ebb, Perry stands up, “Mother,” he says, “you are wrong. You are wrong about all of this. And if Varak is returning to Salvation I will be going too.”

*

THREE MONTHS LATER

Blue and Joy sit on the beach at Salvation and watch the horizon for boats.

“Are you sure he’ll be back today?” says Joy.

“Messenger said today. So he’ll be back today.”

“Do you ever worry…?” Joy begins, and then stops. 

“What?”

“No,” says Joy. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Do I ever worry he won’t come back? That he’ll fall in one of the battles with Calisto?”

“Yes,” says Joy. “The battles to take back Raftan are very bloody, I’ve heard.”

“He’ll come back,” says Blue.

“Boy’s right,” says Drum walking down the castle steps towards them. “Master’ll come back.”

Joy looks up at Drum and Blue sees his face light with love. It’s the strangest thing. Joy and Drum. But it’s impossible to deny when they look at each other. “Shouldn’t you call me master now?” says Joy.

“I might one day,” says Drum. “When you’ve earned it.”

Joy jumps up and runs for Drum, who turns and sprints up the steps to the castle, Joy at his heels yelling something about spanking.

Blue looks back out at the horizon and sees a ship’s mast.

*

That night, in bed, Blue fusses over Varak, kisses any new cut, bruise or scrape he’s brought back from the battles to drive the Calistans out of The Genzies.

“You fuss so much, boy,” Varak says, rolling over so Blue is on his back and Varak is over him.

“I fuss? What about you when my father asked me to join the fight.”

“Your father ought to be in a traitors cell. Besides. Like I told him. Never. Not my boy.” Varak holds Blue’s eyes and slides a thumb into his mouth. Blue sucks on it like a baby.

“I’ve been asked to join the new ruling council when the war is done,” Varak says, pulling his thumb free and tracing the nail edge down Blue’s neck. 

Blue shivers. “What did you say?”

“I said I had a lot I needed to do on Salvation when that war is done.”

“Do you?” Varak’s hand moves lower and curls around Blue’s dick, Blue bucks into it with a cry.

“Always,” Varak whispers. He slides down Blue’s body, kissing a little path down his neck, his chest, over his hips until he kisses Blue’s dick, once on the eager head. Then Varak says, “After I killed Hilde I dug a grave for him. Before he left, I told your uncle where it was, so he can visit. And after I dug that grave, when I went back to Goren, I wept. I wept for the fact that I could never love again. Not while fey-touched as I was. He said I was right. That allowing myself to be touched and killing someone I loved, had cursed my heart. But he gave me a wish bottle. He said that bottle would save me. That when I was settled and The Horror was vanquished I should open it and I would find comfort there.” He dips his head and licks the length of Blue’s dick.

Blue moans with pleasure. “Did you,” he pants. “Did you open it?”

“By the time The Horror was defeated Goren was dead, killed by the fey and I was… I was a monster that had forgotten his own name. I took The Genzies’ sons and fucked them and beat them because I could never love. Never feel again. It took seven years for me to remember I even had that bottle. And when I did, I opened it. I stood up on those cliffs on the North of Salvation and I pulled the cork and nothing happened. Nothing.”

Varak looks at Blue. Blue cants his hips. Tries to get Varak’s attention back on his dick but Varak ignores. it.

“And then,” says Varak, “a month after I opened that bottle, I went to Tribute and there you were. You were, I think 5, 6 years old.”

“You remembered the bottle when you saw me?”

Varak shakes his head. “Not really. I didn’t really think then you were anything to do with that bottle. Now though, I’m not so sure. Boy, I feel more human with you than I have since that night in the mountains.”

Varak leans forward and takes Blue deep in his mouth right down his throat. Blue moans and arches. Everything feels so good, Varak’s hot mouth, the play of his tongue. All of it so good. So perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I.... did I just write Beauty and the Beast?
> 
> Hi friends, thanks for reading this. Thanks for supporting such fringe endeavours as original fic on AO3.
> 
> There will be at least one more story in this world. Probably around the end of March. If you want to be sure you don't miss it the best way is prob to subscribe to [the series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566223)
> 
> I always thought I wouldn't do any sequels. But now I'm not so sure. A lot of people seem to be heading to Bow. Next time, however, we're off to Caen.

**Author's Note:**

> You can ask me about this fic on tumblr 
> 
> https://mathildia.tumblr.com/


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